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SHAKESPEARE'S 



HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. henry N. HUDSON, LL.a 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON . NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 






LIBRARY of OONGRESS,| 
TwoGoDies HeceivoS 

JUL 24 1908 



A 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year i88o. by 

Henry N. Hudson, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wasliington. 

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PRIETORS . BOSTON • U.S.A. 



r 



INTRODUCTION. 



History of the Play. 

JOHNSON rightly observes that the First and Second 
Parts of Ejng Henry the Fourth are substantially one 
drama, the whole being arranged as two only because too 
long to be one. For this cause it seems best to regard 
them as one in what follows, and so dispose of them both 
together. The writing of them must be placed at least as 
early as 1597, when the author was thirty-three years old. 
The First Part was registered at the Stationers' for publi- 
cation in February, 1598, and was published in the course of 
that year. There were also four other quarto issues of the 
play before the foHo edition of 1623. The Second Part was 
first published in 1 600, and there is not known to have 
been any other edition of it till it reappeared along with the 
First Part in the folio. It is pretty certain, however, for 
reasons to be stated presently, that the Second Part was 
written before the entry of the First Part at the Stationers' 
in 1598. 

It is beyond question that the original name of Sir John 
Falstaff was Sir John Oldcastle ; and a curious relic of 
that naming survives in Act i. scene 2, where the Prince 
calls Falstaff " my old lad of the castle P And we have 
several other strong proofs of the fact ; as in the Epilogue 
to the Second Part : " For any thing I know, Falstaff shall 
die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard 



4 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the 
man." Also, in Amends for Ladies, a play by Nathaniel 
Field, printed in 1618 : " Did you never see the play where 
the fat Knight, hight Oldcastle, did tell you truly what 
this honour was?-" which clearly alludes to Falstaff's so- 
liloquy about honour in the First Part, Act v. scene i. 
Yet the change of name must have been made before the 
play was entered in the Stationers' books, as that entry 
mentions "the conceited mirth of Sir John Fals taffy 
And we have one small but pretty decisive mark inferring 
the Second Part to have been written before that change 
was made : in the quarto edition of this Part, Act i. scene 2, 
one of Falstaff's speeches has the prefix Old; the change 
in that instance being probably left unmarked in the 
printer's copy. All which shows that both Parts were 
originally written long enough before February, 1598, for 
the author to see cause for changing the name. 

" Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham," was much 
distinguished as a Wickliffite martyr, and his name was 
held in high reverence by the Protestants in Shakespeare's 
time. And the purpose of the change in question probably 
was to rescue his memory from the profanations of the 
stage. Thus much seems hinted in the forcited passage 
from the Epilogue, and is further approved by what Fuller 
says in his Church History : " Stage-poets have themselves 
been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory 
of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon com- 
panion, jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, 
Sir John Falstaff hath reheved the memory of Sir John 01d> 
castle, and is substituted buffoon in his place." 

Another motive for the change may have been the better 
to distinguish Shakespeare's play from The Famous Victo- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

ries of Henry the Fifth ; a play which had been on the 
stage some years, and wherein Sir John Oldcastle was 
among the names of the Dramatis Personce, as were also 
Ned and Gadshill. There is no telling with any certainty 
when or by whom The Famous Victories was written. It 
is known to have been on the boards as early as 1588, 
because one of the parts was acted by Tarleton, the cele- 
brated comedian, who died that year. And Nash, in his 
Pierce Penniless, 1592, thus alludes to it: "What a glo- 
rious thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on 
the stage, leading the French King prisoner, and forcing 
him and the Dauphin to swear fealty*" It was also entered 
at the Stationers' in 1594; and a play called Harry the 
Fifth, probably the same, was performed in 1595 ; and not 
less than three editions of it were printed. All which tells 
strongly for its success and popularity. The action of the 
play extends over the whole time occupied by Shakespeare's 
King Heftry the Fourth and King Henry the Fifth. The 
Poet can hardly be said to have built upon it or borrowed 
from it at all, any further than taking the above-mentioned 
names. The play is indeed a most wretched and worthless 
performance ; being altogether a mass of stupid vulgarity ; 
at once vapid and vile ; without the least touch of wit in 
the comic parts, or of poetry in the tragic ; the verse being 
such only to the eye ; Sir John Oldcastle being a dull, low- 
minded profligate, uninformed with the slightest felicity of 
thought or humour ; the Prince, an irredeemable compound 
of ruffian, blackguard, and hypocrite ; and their compan- 
ions, the fitting seconds of such principals : so that to have 
drawn upon it for any portion or element of Shakespeare's 
King Henry the Fourth were much the same as " extract- 
ing sunbeams from cucumbers." 



6 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Abstract of the Historic Matter. 

In these plays, as in others of the same class, the Poet's 
authority was Holinshed, whose Chronicles, first published 
in 1577, was then the favourite book in English history. 
And the plays, notwithstanding their wealth of ideal matter, 
are rightly called historical, because the history everywhere 
guides, and in a good measure forms, the plot, whereas 
Macbeth, for instance, though having much of historical 
matter, is rightly called a tragedy, as the history merely 
subserves the plot. 

King Henry the Fourth, surnamed Bolingbroke from the 
place of his birth, came to the throne in 1399, having first 
deposed his cousin, Richard the Second, whose death he 
was generally thought to have procured shortly after. The 
chief agents in this usurpation , were the Percys, known in 
history as Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur, three 
haughty and turbulent noblemen, who afterwards troubled 
Henry to keep the crown as much as they had helped him 
in getting it. 

The lineal heir to the crown next after Richard was 
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, a lad then about seven 
years old, whom the King held in a sort of honourable 
custody. Early in his reign, one of the King's leading 
partisans in Wales went to insulting and oppressing Owen 
Glendower, a chief of that country, who had been trained 
up in the English Court. Glendower petitioned for redress, 
and was insultingly denied ; whereupon he took the work 
of redress into his own hands. Sir Edmund Mortimer, 
uncle to the young Earl of March, and brother to Hotspur's 
wife, was sent against him ; but his forces were utterly 
broken, and himself captured and held in close confinement 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

by Glendower, where the King suffered him to He unran- 
somed, alleging that he had treacherously allowed himself 
to be taken. Shakespeare, however, following Holinshed, 
makes the young Earl, who was then detained at Windsor to 
have been Glendower's prisoner. 

After the captivity of Mortimer the King led three armies 
in succession against Glendower, and was as often baffled by 
the valour or the policy of the Welshman. At length the 
elements made war on the King; his forces were storm- 
■ stricken, blown to pieces by tempests ; which bred a general 
belief that Glendower could "command the Devil," and 
"call spirits from the vasty deep." The King finally gave 
up and withdrew ; but still consoled himself that he yielded 
not to the arms, but to the magic arts of his antagonist. 

In the beginning of his reign the King led an army into 
Scotland, and summoned the Scottish King to appear before 
him and do homage for his crown ; but, finding that the 
Scots would neither submit nor fight, and being pressed by 
famine, he gave over the undertaking and retired. Some 
while after. Earl Douglas, at the head of ten thousand men, 
burst into England, and advanced as far as Newcastle, 
spreading terror and havoc around him. On their return 
they were met by the Percys at Homildon where, after a 
fierce and bloody battle, the Scots were totally routed; 
Douglas himself being captured, as were also many other 
Scottish noblemen, and among them the Earl of Fife, a 
prince of the blood royal. The most distinguished of the 
English leaders in this affair was Henry Percy, surnamed 
Hotspur; a man of the most restless, daring, fiery, and 
impetuous spirit, who first armed at the age of twelve 
years, after which time, it is said, his spur was never cold. 

Of the other events suffice it to say that they are much 



8 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

the same in history as in the drama ; while the Poet's selec- 
tion and ordering of them yield no special cause for remark. 
One or two points, however, it may be well to notice as 
throwing some light on certain allusions in the play. 

In the Spring of 1405, Prince Henry, then in his nine- 
teenth year, was at the head of an army in Wales, where 
Glendower had hitherto carried all before him. By his 
activity, prudence, and perseverance, the young hero gradu- 
ally broke the Welshman down, and at length reduced the 
whole country into subjection. He continued in this ser- 
vice most of the time for four years ; his valour and conduct 
awakening the most favourable expectations, which however 
were not a little dashed by his rampant hilarity during the 
intervals of labour in the field. His father was much grieved 
at these irregularities ; and his grief was heightened by some 
loose and unfilial words that were reported to him as having 
fallen from the Prince in hours of merriment. Hearing of 
this, the Prince went to expostulate with his father ; yet even 
then he enacted a strange freak of oddity, arraying himself 
in a gown of blue satin wrought full of eyelet-holes, and at 
each eyelet the needle still hanging by the silk; probably 
meaning to intimate thereby, that if his behaviour, his moral 
garb, were full of rents, it was not too late to sew them up, 
and the means were at hand for doing so. Being admitted 
to an interview, he fell on his knees and, presenting a dag- 
ger, begged the King to take his life, since he had with- 
drawn his favour. His father, much moved, threw away 
the dagger, and, kissing him, owned with tears that he had 
indeed held him in suspicion, though, as he now saw, with- 
out just cause ; and promised that no misreports should 
thenceforth shake his confidence in him. 

At another time, one of his unruly companions being con- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

victed of felony, and sentenced to prison by the Chief Jus- 
tice, the Prince undertook to rescue him, and even went so 
far as to assault the Judge ; who forthwith ordered him to 
prison also, and he had the good sense to submit. Upon 
being told this incident, the King exclaimed, "Happy the 
King that has a judge so firm in his duty, and a son so 
obedient to the law ! " 

Perhaps I should add, that the battle of Homildon was 
fought September 14, 1402 ; which marks the beginning of 
the play. --^hQ battle of Shrewsbury, which closes the First 
Part, took place July 21, 1403; Prince Henry being then 
only sixteen years old. s The King died March 19, 1413 ; so 
that the two plays cover a period of about ten years and a 
half. 

Character of the King". 

If these two plays are substantially one, it is the character 
of Prince Henry that makes them so ; that is, they have 
their unity in him ; and the common argument of them lies 
in the change alleged to have taken place in him on coming 
to the throne. Why was Henry of Monmouth so loose and 
wild a reveller in his youth, and yet such a proficient in noble 
and virtuous discipline in his manhood ? what causes, internal 
and external, determined him to the one ; what impulses 
from within, what influences from without, transformed him 
into the other? Viewed in the light of this principle, the 
entire work, with its broad, rich variety of incident and char- 
acter, and its alternations of wit and poetry, will be seen, I 
think, to proceed in a spirit of wise insight and design. 

Accordingly, in the first scene of the play, this matter is 
put forth as uppermost in the King's thoughts. I refer to 
what passes between him and Westmoreland touching the 



lO KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

victory at Homildon ; where the Earl declares " it is a con- 
quest for a prince to boast of," and the King replies, 

Yea, there thou makest me sad, and makest me sin, 

In envy that my Lord Northumberland 

Should be the father to so blest a son ; 

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, 

See riot and dishonour stain the brow 

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved 

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged 

In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, 

And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet ! 

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. 

One reason of Prince Henry's early irregularities seems to 
have grown from the character of his father. All accounts 
agree in representing BoHngbroke as a man of great reach 
and sagacity ; a politician of inscrutable craft, full of insinua- 
tion, brave in the field, skilful alike at penetrating others^ 
designs and at concealing his own ; unscrupulous alike in 
smiling men into his service and in crunching them up 
after he had used them. All which is fully borne out in 
that, though his reign was little else than a series of rebel- 
lions and commotions proceeding in part from the injustice 
whereby he reached the crown and the bad title whereby 
he held it, yet he always got the better of them, and even 
turned them to his advantage. Where he could not win 
the heart, cutting off the head, and ever plucking fresh 
security out of the dangers that beset him ; his last years, 
however, were much embittered, and his death probably 
hastened, by the anxieties growing out of his position, and 
the remorses consequent upon his crimes. 

But, while such is the character generally ascribed to him, 
no historian has come near Shakespeare in the painting of 
it. Much of his best transpiration is given in the preceding 



INTRODUCTION. II 

play of Richard the Second, where he is the controlling 
spirit. For, though Richard is the more prominent charac- 
ter in that play, this is not as the mover of things, but as 
the receiver of movements caused by another ; the effects 
lighting on him, while the worker of them is comparatively 
unseen. For one of BoHngbroke's main peculiarities is, 
that he looks solely to results ; and, like a true artist, the 
better to secure these he keeps his designs and processes in 
the dark ; his power thus operating so secretly, that in what- 
ever he does the thing seems to have done itself to his 
hand. How intense his enthusiasm, yet how perfect his 
coolness and composure ! Then too how pregnant and 
forcible, always, yet how calm and gentle, and at times how 
terrible, his speech ! how easily and unconcernedly the 
words drop from him, yet how pat and home they are to 
the persons for whom and the occasions whereon they are 
spoken ! To all which add a flaming thirst of power, a 
most aspiring and mounting ambition, with an equal mix- 
ture of humility, boldness, and craft, and the result explains 
much of the fortune that attends him through all the plays 
in which he figures. For the Poet keeps him the same man 
throughout. 

So that, taking the whole delineation together, we have, at 
full length and done to the life, the portrait of a man in act 
prompt, bold, decisive, in thought sly, subtle, far-reaching ; 
a character hard and cold indeed to the feehngs, but written 
all over with success ; which has no impulsive gushes or 
starts, but all is study, forecast, and calm suiting of means 
to preappointed ends. And this perfect self-command is in 
great part the secret of his strange power over others, mak- 
ing them almost as pliant to his purposes as are the cords 
and muscles of his own body ; so that, as the event proves, 



12 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

he grows great by their feeding, till he can compass food 
enough without their help, and, if they go to hindering him, 
can eat them up. For so it turned out with the Percys ; 
strong sinews indeed with him for a head ; while, against 
him, their very strength served but to work their own over- 
throw. 

Some points of this description are well illustrated in 
what Hotspur says of him just before the battle of Shrews- 
bury, in the speech beginning. 

The King is kind ; and well we know the King 
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. 

Hotspur, to be sure, exaggerates a good deal there, as he 
does everywhere, still his charges have a considerable basis 
of truth. As further matter to the point, observe the ac- 
count which the King gives of himself when remonstrat- 
ing with the Prince against his idle courses ; which is not 
less admirable for truth of history than for skill of pencil. 
Equally fine, also, is the account of his predecessor immedi- 
ately following that of himself; where we see that he has 
the same sharp insight of men as of means, and has made 
Richard's follies and vices his tutors ; from his miscarriages 
learning how to supplant him, and perhaps encouraging his 
errors, that he might make a ladder of them, to mount up 
and overtop him. The whole scene indeed is pregnantly 
characteristic both of the King and the Prince. And how 
the King's penetrating and remorseless sagacity is flashed 
forth in Hotspur's outbursts of rage at his demanding all the 
prisoners taken at Homildon ! wherein that roll of living fire 
is indeed snappish enough, but then he snaps out much 
truth. 

But, though policy was the leading trait in this able man, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

nevertheless it was not so prominent but that other and bet- 
ter traits were strongly visible. And even in his policy there 
was much of the breadth and largeness which distinguish the 
statesman from the politician. Besides, he was a man of 
prodigious spirit and courage, had a real eye to the interests 
of his country as well as of his family, and in his wars he was 
humane much beyond the custom of his time. And in the 
last scene of the Poet's dehneation of him, where he says to 
the Prince, 

Come hither, Harry ; sit thou by my bed, 
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel 
That ever I shall breathe ; 

though we have indeed his subtle policy working out like a 
ruling passion strong in death, still its workings are suffused 
with gushes of right feeling, enough to show that he was not 
all politician ; that beneath his close-knit prudence there was 
a soul of moral sense, a kernel of religion. Nor must I omit 
how the Poet, following the leadings both of nature and his- 
tory, makes him to be plagued by foes springing up in his 
own bosom in proportion as he ceases to be worried by exter- 
nal enemies ; the crown beginning to scald his brows as soon 
as he has crushed those who would pluck it from him. 

The Hotspur of the North. 

How different is the atmosphere which waits upon the 
group of rebel war-chiefs, whereof Hotspur is the soul, and 
where chivalry reigns as supremely as wit and humour do in 
the haunts of Falstaff ! It is difficult to speak of Hotspur 
satisfactorily ; not indeed but that the lines of his character 
are bold and emphatic enough, but rather because they are 
so much so. For his frame is greatly disproportioned, which 



14 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

causes him to seem larger than he is ; and one of his excesses 
manifests itself in a wiry, red-hot speech, which burns such 
an impression of him into the mind as to make any commen- 
tary seem prosaic and dull. There is no mistaking him : no 
character in Shakespeare stands more apart in plenitude of 
peculiarity ; and stupidity itself cannot so disfeature him with 
criticism, but that he will be recognized by any one who has 
ever been with him. He is as much a monarch in his sphere 
as the King and Falstaff are in theirs j only they rule more 
by power, he by stress : there is something in them that takes 
away the will and spirit of resistance ; he makes every thing 
bend to his arrogant, domineering, capricious temper. Who 
that has been with him in the scenes at the Palace and at 
Bangor can ever forget his bounding, sarcastic, overbearing 
spirit ? How he hits all about him, and makes the feathers fly 
wherever he hits ! It seems as if his tongue could go through 
the world, and strew the road behind it with si^linters. And 
how steeped his speech everywhere is in the poetry of the 
sword ! In what compact and sinewy platoons and squad- 
rons .b^ words march out of his mouth in bristling rank and 
file ! as if from his birth he had been cradled on the iron 
breast of war. How doubly-charged he is, in short, with the 
electricity of chivalry ! insomuch that you can touch him 
nowhere but he gives you a shock. 

In those two scenes, what with Hotspur, and what with 
Glendower, the poetry is as unrivalled in its kind as the wit 
and humour in the best scenes at Eastcheap. What a dress- 
ing Hotspur gives the silken courtier who came to demand 
the prisoners ! Still better, however, is the dialogue that 
presently follows in the same scene ; where Hotspur seems 
to be under a spell, a fascination of rage and scorn : nothing 
can check him, he cannot check himself; because, besides 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

the boundings of a most turbulent and impetuous nature, he 
has always had his own way, having from his boyhood held 
the post of a feudal war-chief Irascible, headstrong, impa- 
tient, every effort to arrest or divert him only produces a new 
impatience. Whatever thought strikes him, it forthwith kin- 
dles into an overmastering passion that bears down all before 
it. We see that he has a rough and passionate soul, great 
strength and elevation of mind, with little gentleness and 
less delicacy, and a " force of will that rises into poetry by 
its own chafings." While "the passion of talk" is upon 
him, he fairly drifts and surges before it till exhausted, and 
then there supervenes an equal " passion of action." " Speak- 
ing thick " is noted as one of his peculiarities ; and it is not 
clear whether the Poet took this from some tradition respect- 
ing him, or considered it a natural result of his prodigious 
rush and press of thought. 

Another stq^iking trait in Hotspur, resulting perhaps, in 
part, from his liivdng so much passion in his head, is the 
singular absence of mind so well described by Prince Henry : 
"I am not of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the N^rt. ;■ he 
that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, 
washes his hands, and says to his wife. Fie upon this qinet 
life I I want work. O, my sweet Harry / says she, how 
many hast thou killed to-day ? Give my 7'oan horse a 
drench, says he ; and answers, an hour after, Some fourteen ; 
a trifle, a trifle / " So again in the scene of Hotspur and 
his wife at Warkworth. She winds up her strain of tender 
womanly remonstrance by saying. 

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, 
And I must know it, else he loves me not. 

Before answerinsr her, he calls in a servant, makes several 



1 6 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

inquiries about his horse, and orders him to be brought into 
the park, hears her reproof, and exchanges divers questions 
with her ; then repHes, " Love ! I love thee not ; I care not 
for thee, Kate " ; and presently heals up the wound : 

Come, wilt thou see me ride ? 
And when I am o' horseback I will swear 
I love thee infinitely. 

Here it is plain that his absence grows from a certain skit- 
tishness of mind : he has not the control of his thinking ; 
the issues of his brain being so conceived in fire as to pre- 
clude steadiness of attention and the pauses of thought. 

The qualities I have noted in Hotspur unfit him, in a 
great measure, for a military leader in regular warfare, his 
nature being too impulsive and heady for the counterpoise 
of so weighty an undertaking. Too impatient and eager 
for the contest to concert operations ; abundantly able to 
fight battles, but not to scheme them ; he is qualified to 
succeed only in the hurly-burly of border warfare, where 
success comes more by fury of onset than by wisdom of 
plan. All which is finely apparent just before the battle 
of Shrewsbury, where, if not perversely wrong-headed, he 
is so headstrong, peremptory, and confident even to rash- 
ness, as to be quite impracticable. We see, and his fellow- 
chieftains see, that there is no coming to a temper with 
him ; he being sure to run a quarrel with any one who 
stands out against his proposals. Yet he is never more 
truly the noble Hotspur than on this occasion, when, amidst 
the falling-off of friends, the backwardness of allies, and 
the thickening of dangers, his ardent and brave spirit turns 
his very disadvantages into grounds of confidence. 

His untamed boisterousness of tongue has one of its best 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

eruptions in the dispute with Glendower at Bangor, where 
his wit and his impudence come in for about equal shares 
of our admiration. He finally stops the mouth of his an- 
tagonist, or heads him ofif upon another subject, as he does 
again shortly after, in a dispute about the partitioning of 
the realm ; and he does it not so much by force of reason 
as of will and speech. His contempt of poetry is highly 
characteristic ; though it is observable that he has spoken 
more poetry than any one else in the play. But poetry is 
altogether an impulse with him, not a purpose, as it is with 
Glendower; and he loses all thought of himself and his 
speech, in the intensity of passion with which he contem- 
plates the object or occasion that moves him. His celebrated 
description of the fight between Glendower and Mortimer 
has been censured as offending good taste by its extrava- 
gance. It would not be in good taste indeed to put such 
a strain into the mouth of a contemplative sage, like Pros- 
pero ; but in Hotspur its very extravagance is in good taste, 
because hugely characteristic. 

Hotspur is a general favourite : whether from something 
in himself or from the King's treatment of him, he has our 
good-will from the start ; nor is it without some reluctance 
that we set the Prince above him in our regard. Which 
may be owing in part to the interest we take, and justly, in 
his wife ; who, timid, solicitous, affectionate, and playful, is 
a woman of the true Shakespearian stamp. How delectable 
is the harmony felt between her prying, inquisitive gentle- 
ness and his rough, stormy courage ! for in her gentleness 
there is much strength, and his bravery is not without gen- 
tleness. The scene at Warkworth, where they first appear 
together, is a choice heart-refection : combining the beauty 
of movement and of repose, it comes into the surrounding 
elements like a patch of sunshine in a tempest. 



1 8 KING HENRY THE FOURTH- 

Grlendower the Magician. 

The best of historical matter for poetical and dramatic 
uses has seldom been turned to better account that way 
than in the portrait of Glendower. He is represented, with 
great art and equal truth, according to the superstitious be- 
lief of his time ; a behef in which himself doubtless shared : 
for, if the winds and tempests came when he wished them, 
it was natural for him to think, as others thought, that they 
came because he wished them. The popular ideas respect- 
ing him all belonged to the region of poetry ; and Shake- 
speare has given them with remarkable exactness, at the 
same time penetrating and filhng them with his own spirit. 

Crediting the alleged portents of his nativity, Glendower 
might well conclude he was "not in the roll of common 
men"; and so betake himself to the study and practice of 
those magic arts which were generally believed in then, 
and for which he was specially marked by his birth and all 
the courses of his life. And for the same cause he would 
naturally become somewhat egotistical, long-winded, and 
tedious ; presuming that what was interesting to him as re- 
lating to himself would be equally so to others for its own 
sake. So that we need not altogether discredit Hotspur's 
account of the time spent by him "in reckoning up the 
several devils' names that were his lacqueys." For, though 
Hotspur exaggerates here, as usual, yet we see that he has 
some excuse for his sauciness to Glendower, in that he has 
been dreadfully bored by him. And there is something 
ludicrous withal in the Welshman's being so wrapped up 
in himself as not to perceive the unfitness of talking thus to 
one so hare-brained and skittish. 

Glendower, however, is no ordinary enthusiast. A man 



INTRODUCTION. IQ 

of wild and mysterious imaginations, yet he has a practical 
skill that makes them tell against the King ; his dealing in 
magic rendering him even more an object of fear than his 
valour and conduct. And his behaviour in the disputes 
with Hotspur approves him as much superior in the exter- 
nal qualities of a gentleman as he is more superstitious. 
Though no suspicion of any thing false or mean can attach 
to Hotspur, it is characteristic of him to indulge his haughty 
temper even to the thwarting of his purpose : he will hazard 
the blowing-up of the conspiracy rather than put a bridle on 
his impatience ; which the Welshman, with all his grandeur 
and earnestness of pretension, is too prudent to do. 

In the portrait of Glendower there is nothing unwarranted 
by history; only Shakespeare has with marked propriety 
made the enthusiastic and poetical spirit of the man send 
him to the study of magic arts, as involving some natural 
aptitude or affinity for them. It may be interesting to know 
that he managed to spin out the contest among the wilds of 
Snowdon far into the next reign ; his very superstition per- 
haps lending him a strength of soul which no misfortune 
could break. I must not leave this strange being without 
remarking how sweetly his mind nestles in the bosom of 
poetry; as appears in the passage where he acts as inter- 
preter between his daughter and her husband Mortimer. 

Minor Historical Characters. 

Among the minor historical characters of these plays 
there is much judicious discrimination. — Lord Bardolph is 
shrewd and sensible, of a firm practical understanding, and 
prudent forecast ; and none the less brave, that his cool 
judgment puts him upon looking carefully before he leaps. — 



20 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Vernon, with his well-poised discretion in war-council and 
his ungrudging admiration of the Prince, makes a happy foil 
to Hotspur, whose intemperate daring in conduct, and whose 
uneasiness at hearing Prince Henry's praises spoken, would 
something detract from his manhood, but that no suspicion 
of dishonour can fasten upon him. — The Archbishop, so 
forthright and strong-thoughted, bold, enterprising, and reso- 
lute in action, in speech grave, moral, and sententious, forms, 
all together, a noble portrait. — The Chief Justice, besides 
the noble figure he makes at the close, is, with capital dra- 
matic effect, brought forward several times in passages at 
arms with Falstaff; where his good-natured wisdom, as dis- 
covered in his suppressed enjoyment of the fat old sinner's 
wit, just serves to sweeten without at all diluting the rever- 
ence that waits upon his office and character. — Northumber- 
land makes good his character as found in history. Evermore 
talking big and doing nothing ; full of verbal tempest and 
practical impotence ; and still ruining his friends, and at last 
himself, between ''I would" and ''I dare not"; he lives 
without our respect, and dies unpitied of us ; while his 
daughter-in-law's remembrance of her noble husband kin- 
dles a sharp resentment of his mean-spirited backwardness, 
and a hearty scorn of his blustering verbiage. 

Delineation of the Prince. 

Prince Henry was evidently a great favourite with the 
Poet. And he makes him equally so with his readers : pour- 
ing the full wealth of his genius upon him ; centring in him 
almost every manly grace and virtue, and presenting him as 
the mirror of Christian princes and loadstar of honour ; a 
model at once of a hero, a gentleman, and a sage. Wherein, 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

if not true to fact, he was true to the sentiment of the English 
people ; who probably cherished the memory of Henry the 
Fifth with more fondness than any other of their kings since 
the great Alfred. 

In the character of this man Shakespeare deviated from 
all the historical authorities known to have been accessible to 
him. Later researches, however, have justified his course 
herein, and thus given rise to the notion of his having drawn 
from some traditionary matter that had not yet found a place 
in written history. An extraordinary conversion was gener- 
ally thought to have fallen upon the Prince on coming to the 
crown ; insomuch that the old chroniclers could only account 
for the change by some miracle of grace or touch of super- 
natural benediction. Walsingham^ a contemporary of thd^, 
Prince, tells us that " as soon as he was invested with the 
ensigns of royalty he was suddenly changed into a new man, 
behaving with propriety, modesty, and gravity, and showing 
a desire to practise every kind of virtue." Caxton, also, says 
" he was a noble prince after he was king and crowned ; how- 
beit in his youth he had been wild, reckless, and spared 
nothing of his lusts nor desires." And various other old 
writers speak of him in the same strain. 

Prince Heniy's conduct was indeed such as to lose him 
his seat in the Council, where he was replaced by his younger 
brother. Nevertheless it is certain that in mental and literary 
accomplishment he was in advance of his age ; being in fact 
one of the most finished gentlemen as well as greatest states- 
men and best men of his time. This seeming contradiction 
is all cleared up in the Poet's representation. It was for the 
old chroniclers to talk about his miraculous conversion : 
Shakespeare, in a far wiser spirit, and more religious too, 
brings his conduct within the ordinary rules of human char- 



22 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

acter ; representing whatever changes occur in him as pro- 
ceeding by the methods and proportions of nature. His early 
" addiction to courses vain " is accounted for by the character 
of Falstaff ; it being no impeachment of his intellectual or 
moral manhood, that he is drawn away by such a mighty 
magazine of fascinations. It is true, he is not altogether 
unhurt by his connection with Sir John : he is himself sensi- 
ble of this ; and the knowledge goes far to justify his final 
treatment of Falstaff. But, even in his wildest merry-mak- 
ings, we still taste in him a spice and flavour of manly recti- 
tude ; undesigned by him indeed, and the more assuring to 
us, that he evidently does not taste it himself. Shakespeare 
has nothing finer in its way than the gradual sundering of the 
ties that bind him to Falstaff, as the higher elements of his 
nature are called forth by emergent occasions ; and his turn- 
ing the dregs of unworthy companionship into food of noble 
thought and sentiment, extracting the sweetness of wisdom 
from the weeds of dangerous experiences. And his whole 
progress through this transformation, till " like a reappearing 
star " he emerges from the cloud of wildness wherein he had 
obscured his contemplation, is dappled with rare spots of 
beauty and promise. 

At the battle of Shrewsbury, as already stated, the Prince 
was sixteen years old. But, young as he was, he did the 
work of a man, never ceasing to fight where the battle was 
hottest ; though so badly hurt in the face, that much effort 
was used to withdraw him from the field. So that in fact 
he was some twenty years younger than Hotspur. Such a 
difference of age would naturally foreclose any rivalry between 
them ; and one of the Poet's most judicious departures from 
literal truth is in approximating their ages, that such influences 
might have a chance to work. The King, too, displays his 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

usual astuteness in endeavouring to make the fame of Hot- 
spur tell upon the Prince ; though he still strikes wide of his 
real character, misderiving his conduct from a want of noble 
aptitudes, whereas it springs rather from a lack of such motives 
and occasions with which his better aptitudes can combine. 
But the King knows right well there is matter in him that 
will take fire when such sparks are struck into it. Accord- 
ingly, before they part, the Prince speaks such words, and in 
such a spirit, as to win his father's confidence ; the emulation 
kindled in him being no less noble than the object of it. 
Now it is that his many-sided, harmonious manhood begins 
fully to unfold itself. He has already discovered forces 
answering to all the attractions of Falstaff ; and it is to be 
hoped that none will think the worse of him for preferring 
the climate of Eastcheap to that of the Court. Bnt the issue 
proves that he has far better forces, which sleep indeed dur- 
ing the absence, but spring forth at the coming, of their 
proper stimulants and opportunities. In the close-thronging 
dangers that beset his father's throne he has noble work to 
do ; in the thick-clustering honours of Hotspur, noble motives 
for- doing it ; and the two together furnish those more con- 
genial attractions whereby he is gradually detached from a 
life of hunt-sport, and drawn up into the nobly-proportioned 
beauty with which both poetry and history have invested him. 
In this dehneation are many passages over which the 
lover of poetry and manhood delights to linger; but it 
would be something out of keeping with my method to 
quote any of them. Nor can I dwell on the many gentle 
and heroic qualities that make up Prince Henry's well- 
rounded beautiful character. His tenderness of filial piety 
appears in his heart-bleeding grief at his father's sickness ; 
and his virtuous prudence no less appears in his avoiding 



24 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

all show of grief, as knowing that this, taken together with 
his past levity, will be sure to draw on him the imputation 
of hypocrisy : his magnanimity appears in his pleading for 
the life of Douglas ; his ingenuousness, in the free and 
graceful apology to the King for his faults ; his good-nature 
and kindness of heart, in the apostrophe to Falstaff when he 
thinks him dead ; his chivalrous generosity, in the enthusi- 
asm with which he praises Hotspur; and his modesty, in 
the style of his challenge to him. And yet his nobilities of 
heart and soul come along in such easy, natural touches, 
they drop out so much as the spontaneous issues of his life, 
that 'we hardly notice them, thus engaging him our love 
and honour, we scarce know how or why. Great without 
effort, and good without thinking of it, he is indeed a noble 
ornament of the princely character. 

Dramatic Use of Falstaff. 

I have already observed how Prince Henry's deportment 
as King was in marked contrast with his course while Prince 
of Wales. I have also noted that the change in him on 
coming to the throne was so great and so sudden as to be 
popularly ascribed to a miracle of grace. Now Shakespeare 
knew that the day of miracles was passed. He also knew 
that without a miracle such a sudden revolution of cha?^acter 
could not be. And so his idea clearly was, that the change 
was not really in his character, but only superinduced upon 
it by change of position ; that his excellent qualities were 
but disguised from the world by clouds of loose behaviour, 
which, when the time came, he threw off, and appeared as 
he really was. To translate the reason and process of this 
change into dramatic form and expression was the problem 
which the Poet undertook to solve in these two plays. 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

In his delineation of the Prince Shakespeare followed 
the historians as far as they gave him any solid ground to 
go upon; where they failed him, he supphed the matter 
from his own stores. Now in all reason Prince Hal must 
have had companions in the merry-makings which are re- 
lated of him ; for no man of sense goes into such pastimes 
alone. But of the particular persons " unletter'd, rude, and 
shallow," with whom he had "his hours fill'd up with riots, 
banquets, sports," nothing was known, not even their names. 
So that the Poet had no way to set forth this part of the 
man's life but by creating one or more representative char- 
acters, concentrating in them such a fund of mental attrac- 
tions as might overcome the natural repugnance of an 
upright and noble mind to their vices. Which is just what 
the Poet does in this instance. And his method was, to em- 
body in imaginary forms that truth of which the actual 
forms had not been preserved ; for, as Hallam well ob- 
serves, " what he invented is as truly historical, in the large 
sense of moral history, as what he read." 

From the account already given of Bolingbroke it is plain 
enough what state of things would be likely to wait on him. 
His great force of character would needs give shape and 
tone to Court and Council-board, while his subtlety and 
intricacy might well render the place any thing but inviting 
to a young man of free and generous aptitudes. That the 
Prince, as Shakespeare conceived him, should breathe some- 
what hard in such an atmosphere, is not difficult to under- 
stand. However he may respect such a father, and though 
in thought he may even approve the public counsels, still he 
relucts to share in them, as going against his grain ; and so 
is naturally drawn away either to such occupations where his 
high-strung energies can act without crossing his honourable 



26 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

feelings, or else to some tumultuous merry-makings where, 
laying off all distinct purpose, and untying his mind into 
perfect dishabille, he can let his bounding spirits run out in 
transports of frolic and fun. The question then is, to what 
sort of attractions will he betake himself? It must be no 
ordinary companionship that yields entertainment to such a 
spirit even in his loosest moments. Whatever bad or ques- 
tionable elements may mingle in his mirth, it must have some 
fresh and rich ingredients, some sparkling and generous 
flavour, to make him relish it. Any thing like vulgar rowdy- 
ism cannot fail of disgusting him. His ears were never 
organized to that sort of music. 

Here then we have a sort of dramatic necessity for the 
character of Falstaff. To answer the purpose, it was imper- 
ative that he should be just such a marvellous congregation 
of charms and vices as he is. None but an old man could 
be at once so dissolute and so discerning, or appear to think 
so much like a wise man even when talking most unwisely ; 
and he must have a world of wit and sense, to reconcile a 
mind of such native rectitude and penetration to his profli- 
gate courses. In the qualities of Sir John we can easily see 
how the Prince might be, the madcap reveller that history 
gives him out, and yet be all the while laying in choice 
preparations of wisdom and virtue, so as to need no other 
conversion than the calls of duty and the opportunities of 
noble enterprise. 

Character of Falstaff. 

Falstaffs character is more complex than can well be 
digested into the forms of logical statement ; which makes 
him a rather impracticable subject for analysis. He has so 
much, or is so much, that one cannot easily tell what he is. 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

Diverse and even opposite qualities meet in him ; yet they 
poise so evenly, blend so happily, and work together so 
smoothly, that no generalities can set him off; if we under- 
take to grasp him in a formal conclusion, the best part of 
him still escapes between the fingers ; so that the only way 
to give an idea of him is to take the man himself along 
and show him ; and who shall do this with " plump Jack " ? 
One of the wittiest of men, yet he is not a wit ; one of 
the most sensual of men, still he cannot with strict justice 
be called a sensualist ; he has a strong sense of danger and 
a lively regard to his own safety, a peculiar vein indeed of 
cowardice, or something very like it, yet he is not a coward ; 
he lies and brags prodigiously, still he is not a liar nor a 
braggart. Any such general descriptions applied to him can 
serve no end but to make us think we understand him when 
we do not. 

If I were to fix upon any one thing as specially charac- 
teristic of Falstaff, I should say it is an amazing fund of 
good sense. His stock of this, to be sure, is pretty much all 
enlisted in the service of sensuality, yet nowise so but that 
the servant still overpeers and outshines the master. Then 
too his thinking has such agility, and is at the same time so 
pertinent, as to do the work of the most prompt and popping 
witj yet in such sort as to give the impression of some- 
thing much larger and stronger than wit. For mere wit, be 
it ever so good, requires to be sparingly used, and the more 
it tickles the sooner it tires ; like salt, it is grateful as a sea- 
soning, but will not do as food. Hence it is that great 
wits, unless they have great judgment too, are so apt to be 
great bores. But no one ever wearies of Falstaff's talk, 
who has the proper sense for it ; his speech being like pure 
fresh cold water, which always tastes good because it is 



28 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

tasteless. The wit of other men seems to be some special 
faculty or mode of thought, and lies in a quick seizing of 
remote and fanciful affinities ; in Falstaff it lies not in any 
one thing more than another, for which cause it cannot be 
defined : and I know not how to describe it but as that 
roundness and evenness of mind which we call good sense, 
so quickened and pointed indeed as to produce the effect of 
wit, yet without hindrance to its own proper effect. To 
use a snug idiomatic phrase, what Falstaff" says always fits 
all round. 

And Falstaff" is well aware of his power in this respect. 
He is vastly proud of it too ; yet his pride never shows 
itself in an off"ensive shape, his good sense having a certain 
instinctive delicacy that keeps him from every thing like 
that. In this proud consciousness of his resources he is 
always at ease ; hence in part the ineffable charm of his 
conversation. Never at a loss, and never apprehensive 
that he shall be at a loss, he therefore never exerts him- 
self, nor takes any concern for the result ; so that nothing 
is strained or far-fetched : relying calmly on his strength, 
he invites the toughest trials, as knowing that his powers 
will bring him off" without any using of the whip or the 
spur, and by merely giving the rein to their natural brisk- 
ness and celerity. Hence it is also that he so often lets go 
all regard to prudence of speech, and thrusts himself into 
tight places and predicaments : he thus makes or seeks 
occasions to exercise his fertility and alertness of thought, 
being well assured that he shall still come off" uncornered, 
and that the greater his seeming perplexity, the greater 
will be his triumph. Which explains the purpose of his 
incomprehensible lies : he tells them, surely, not expecting 
them to be befieved, but partly for the pleasure he takes ill 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

the excited play of his faculties, partly for the surprise he 
causes by his still more incomprehensible feats of dodging. 
Such is his story about the men in buckram who grew so 
soon from two to eleven ; and how " three misbegotten 
knaves in Kendall green came at my back, and let drive at 
me ; — for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy 
hand"; — lies which, as himself knows well enough, are 
"gross as a mountain, open, palpable." These, I take it, 
are studied self-exposures, to invite an attack. Else why 
should he thus affirm in the same breath the colour of the 
men's clothes and the darkness of the night? The whole 
thing is clearly a scheme, to provoke his hearers to come 
down upon him, and then witch them with his facility and 
fehcity in extricating himself. And so, when they pounce 
upon him, and seem to have him in their toils, he forthwith 
springs a diversion upon them : 

Prince. What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find 
out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame ? 

Fals. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as He that made ye. Why, hear 
ye, my masters : was it for me to kill the heir-apparent ? Should I turn 
upon the true Prince? Why, thou know'st I am as valiant as Hercules; 
but beware instinct : the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a 
great matter : I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself 
and thee during my life ; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. 

To understand this aright, we must bear in mind, that 
according to the general rule of succession Prince Henry 
was not the true prince. Legally considered, his father was 
an usurper ; and he could have no right to the crown but in 
virtue of some higher law. This higher law is authenti- 
cated by Falstaff's instinct. The lion, king of beasts, knows 
royalty by royal intuition. 

Such is the catastrophe for which the foregoing acts, the 
hacking of his sword, the insinuations of cowardice, the 



30 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

boastings, and the palpable lies, were the prologue and 
preparation. So that his course here is all of a piece with 
his usual practice of involving himself in difficulties, the 
better to set off his readiness at shifts and evasions ; know- 
ing that, the more he gets entangled in his talk, the richer 
will be the effect when by a word he slips off the entangle- 
ment. I am persuaded that Sir John suspected all the 
while who their antagonists were in the Gads-hill robbery ; 
but determined to fall in with and humour the joke, on 
purpose to make sport for the Prince and himself, and at 
the same time to retort their deception by pretending igno- 
rance. 

We have similar feats of dodging in the scene where Fal- 
staff rails at the Hostess for keeping a house where pockets 
are picked, and also at the Prince for saying that his ring 
was copper. The Prince entering just then, the Hostess 
tells him of the affair, Falstaff goes to railing at her again, 
and she defends herself; which brings on the following : 

Prince. Thou sayest true, Hostess ; and he slanders thee most grossly. 

Host. So he doth you, my lord ; and said, this other day, you ought him 
a thousand pound. 

Prmce. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound ? 

Fals. A thousand pound, Hal ! a million ! Thy love is worth a million ; 
thou owest me thy love. 

Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. 

Fals. Did I, Bardolph ? 

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. 

Fals. Yea ; if he said my ring was copper. 

Prince. I say 'tis copper : darest thou be as good as thy word now ? 

Fals. Why, Hal, thou know'st, as thou art but man, I dare ; but, as thou 
art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp. 

Prince. And why not as the lion ? 

Fals. The King himself is to be feared as the Hon. Dost thou think I'll 
fear thee as I fear thy father ? 

Prince. Sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

bosom of thine. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket ! Why, 
thou impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but 
tavern-reckonings, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee 
long-winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but 
these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it ; you will not pocket up 
wrong : art thou not ashamed ! 

Fals. Dost thou hear Hal ? Thou know'st, in the state of innocency 
Adam fell: and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? 
Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. 

In all these replies there is clearly nothing more to be 
said. And thus, throughout, no exigency turns up but that 
Sir John is ready with a word that exactly fits into and fill? 
the place. And his tactics he not in turning upon his pur- 
suers and holding them at bay ; but, when the time is ripe, 
and they seem to have caught him, he instantaneously 
diverts them upon another scent, or else enchants them into 
a pause by his nimble-footed sallies and escapes. 

Elsewhere the same faculty shows itself in a quick turn- 
ing of events, to his own advantage ; as at the battle of 
Shrewsbury, when, being assailed by Douglas, he falls down 
as if killed, and in that condition witnesses the fall of Hot- 
spur ; and then claps up a scheme for appropriating the 
honour of his death. The stratagem must be given in his 
own words : 

'Sblood ! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid 
me scot and lot too. Counterfeit ! I lie ; I am no counterfeit : to die, is to 
be a counterfeit ; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the 
life of a man : but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be 
no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better 
part of valour is discretion ; in the which better part I have saved my life.— 
Zwounds! lam afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How, 
if he should counterfeit too, and rise ? By my faith, I am afraid he would 
prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll 
swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I ? Nothing confutes 
me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in 
your thigh, come you along with me. 



22 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

He then shoulders the body and walks off. Presently he 
meets the Prince and his brother John, throws down the 
body, and we have the following : 

Fa/s. There is Percy ! if your father will do me any honour, so ; if not, 
let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can 
assure you. 

Prince. Why, Percy I killed, myself, and saw thee dead. 

Fals. Didst thou ! — Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying ! — I 
grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he ; but we rose both 
at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be 
believed, so ; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon 
their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the 
thigh : if the man were alive, and would deny it, zwounds ! I would make 
him eat a piece of my sword. 

Here his action as exactly fits into and fills the place as 
his words do in other cases. He carries the point, not by 
disputing the Prince's claim, but by making it appear that 
they both beat down the valiant Hotspur in succession. If 
the Prince left Hotspur dead, he saw Falstaff dead too. 
And Falstaff most adroitly clinches his scheme by giving 
this mistake such a turn as to accredit his own lies. 

It has been said that Shakespeare displays no great force, 
of invention; and that in the incidents of his dramas he 
borrows much more than he originates. It is true, he dis- 
covers no pride nor prodigality of inventiveness ; he shows 
indeed a noble indifference on that score ; cares not to get 
up new plots and incidents of his own where he finds them 
ready-made to his hand. Which is to me, as I have else- 
where remarked, good evidence that he prized novelty in 
such things at its true worth, and chose to spend his force 
on the weightier matters of his art. But he is inventive 
enough whenever he has occasion to be so ; and in these 
incidents about Falstaff, as in hundreds of others, he shows 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

a fertility and aptness of invention in due measure and keep- 
ing with his other gifts. 

Falstaff finds special matter of self-exultation in that the 
tranquil, easy contact and grapple of his mind acts as a 
potent stimulus on others, provided they be capable of it, 
lifting them up to his own height. " Men of all sorts," says 
he, '^ take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish- 
compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that 
tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me ; 
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in 
other men." Here it is plain that he is himself proud of 
the pride that others take in girding at him ; he enjoys their 
wit even more than they do, because he is the begetter of it. 
He is the flint, to draw sparks from their steel, and himself 
shines by the light he causes them to emit. For, in truth, 
to laugh and to provoke laughter is with him the chief end 
of man. Which is further shown in what he says of Prince 
John : " Good faith, this same young, sober-blooded boy 
doth not love me ; nor a man cannot make him laugh." He 
sees that the brain of this dry youth has nothing for him to 
get hold of or work upon ; that, be he ever so witty in him- 
self, he cannot be the cause of any wit in him ; and he is 
vexed and chagrined that his wit fails upon him. And John- 
son, speaking of Prince John's frosty-hearted virtue, well 
remarks that " he who cannot be softened into gayety cannot 
easily be melted into kindness." And, let me add, none 
are so hopeless as they that have no bowels. Austere boys 
are not apt to make large-souled men. And it was this same 
strait-laced youth who, in the history as in the play, after- 
wards broke faith with the Archbishop and other insurgent 
leaders near York, snapping them up with a mean and cruel 
act of perfidy, and, which is more, thought the better of him- 



34 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

self for having done so. I suspect Prince Henry is nearer 
Heaven in his mirth than Prince John in his prayers ! 

This power of generating wit and thought in others is 
what, in default of entertainment for his nobler qualities, 
attracts the Prince ; who evidently takes to Sir John chiefly 
for the mental excitement of his conversation. And, on the 
other hand, Falstaff 's pride of wit is specially gratified in the 
fascination he has over the Prince ; and he spares no pains, 
scruples no knavery, to work diversion for him. Witness 
what he says to himself when tempering Justice Shallow 
"between his finger and his thumb " : "I will devise matter 
enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual 
laughter the wearing-out of six fashions. O, it is much that 
a lie with a slight oath, and a jest with a sad brow, will do 
with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders. O, 
you shall see him laugh, till his face be like a wet cloak ill 
laid up." 

Nor has Falstaff any difficulty in stirring up congenial 
motions in the Prince, insomuch that the teacher sometimes 
has enough to do to keep his leading. Falstaff is the same 
in this respect when the Prince is away ; indeed his wit is 
never more fluent and racy than in his soliloquies. But it 
is not so with the Prince ; as appears in his occasional 
playing with other characters, where he is indeed sprightly 
and sensible enough, but wants the nimbleness and raciness 
of wit which he displays in conversation with Sir John. 
The cause of which plainly is, that Falstaff has his wit in 
himself; the Prince, in virtue of Falstaff s presence. With 
Sir John the Prince is nearly as great as he in the same 
kind ; without him, he has none of his greatness ; though 
he has a greatness of his own which is far better, and which 
Falstaff is so far from having in himself, that he cannot even 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

perceive it in another. Accordingly it is remarkable that 
Prince Henry is the only person in the play who understands 
Falstaff, and the only one too whom Falstaff does not under- 
stand. 

One of Sir John's greatest triumphs is in his first scene 
with the Chief Justice ; the purpose of that scene being, 
apparently, to justify the Prince in yielding to his fascina- 
tions, by showing that there is no gravity so firm but he 
can thaw it into mirth, provided it be the gravity of a fertile 
and genial mind. And so, here, the sternness with which 
this wise and upright man begins is charmed into playfulness 
before he gets through. He sHdes insensibly into the style 
of Sir John, till at last he falls to downright punning. He 
even seems to draw out the interview, that he may taste the 
delectable spicery of FalstafPs talk ; and we fancy him laugh- 
ing repeatedly in his sleeve while they are talking, and then 
roaring himself into stitches directly he gets out of sight. 
Nor, unless our inward parts be sadly out of gear, can we 
help loving and honouring him the more for being drawn 
into such an intellectual frolic by such an intellectual player. 

Palstaff's Humour. 

Coleridge denies that Falstaff has, properly speaking, any 
humour. Coleridge is high authority indeed; nevertheless 
I cannot so come at Sir John but that his whole mental 
structure seems pervaded with a most grateful and refresh- 
ing moisture ; nor can I well understand any definition of 
humour that would exclude him from being among the 
greatest of all both verbal and practical humourists. Just 
think of his proposing Bardolph, — an offscouring and pack- 
age of dregs which he has picked up, nobody can guess 



36 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

wherefore, unless because his face has turned into a per- 
petual blush and carbuncle; — just think of his proposing 
such a person for security, and that too to one who knows 
them both ! To my sense, his humour is shown alike in 
the offer of such an endorser and in what he says about the 
refusal of it. And in his most exigent moments this juice 
keeps playing in with rarely- exhilarating effect, as in the 
exploit at Gadshill and the battle of Shrewsbury. And 
everywhere he manifestly takes a huge pleasure in referring 
to his own peculiarities, and putting upon them the most 
grotesque and droll and whimsical constructions, no one 
enjoying the jests that are vented on him more than he does 
himself. 

Falstafif's overflowing humour results in a placid good- 
nature towards those about him, and attaches them by the 
mere remembrance of pleasure in his company. The tone 
of feeling he inspires is well shown in what the Hostess says 
when he leaves her for the wars : " Well, fare thee well : I 
have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod- 
time ; but an honester and truer^hearted man — well, fare 
thee well." She wants to say some good of him which she 
cannot quite say, it is so glaringly untrue ; the only in- 
stance, by the way, of her being checked by any scruples 
on that score. This feeling of the Hostess is especially 
significant in view of what has passed between them. She 
cannot keep angry at him, because in his roughest speeches 
there is something tells her it is all a mere carousal of his 
wits. Even when she is most at odds with him, a soothing 
word at once sweetens her thoughts ; so that, instead of 
pushing him for the money he has borrowed, she pawns her 
plate, to lend him ten pounds more. 

And so in regard to his other associates : he often abuses 



INTRODUCTION. 'l^J 

them outrageously, so far as this can be done by words, yet 
they are not really hurt by it, and never think of resenting it. 
Perhaps, indeed, they do not respect him enough to feel 
resentment towards him. But, in truth, the juiciness of his 
spirit not only keeps malice out of him, but keeps others from 
imputing it to him. Then too he lets off as great tempests 
of abuse upon himself, and means just as much by them : 
they are but exercises of his powers, and this, merely for the 
exercise itself ; that is, they are play ; having indeed a kind 
of earnestness, but it is the earnestness of sport. Hence, 
whether alone or in company, he not only has all his faculties 
about him, but takes the same pleasure in exerting them, if 
it may be called exertion ; for they always seem to go of their 
own accord. It is remarkable that he sohloquizes more than 
any of the Poet's characters except Hamlet ; thought being 
equally an everspringing impulse in them both, though, to be 
sure, in very different forms. 

His Practical Sagacity. 

Nor is Falstaff's mind tied to exercises of wit and humour. 
He is indeed the greatest of make-sports, but he is some- 
thing more. (He must be something more, else he could 
not be that.) He has as much practical sagacity and pene- 
tration as the King. Except the Prince, there is no person 
in the play who sees so far into the characters of those about 
him. Witness his remarks about Justice Shallow and his 
men : " It is a wonderful thing to see the semblable cohe- 
rence of his men's spirits and his : they, by observing of him, 
do bear themselves like foolish justices ; he, by conversing 
with them, is turned into a justice-like serving-man. If I had 
a suit to Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the 
imputation of being near their master ; if to his men, I would 



38 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

curry with Master Shallow, that no man could better command 
his servants." Which is indeed a most shrewd and search- 
ing commentary on what Sir John has just seen and heard. 
It is impossible to hit them off more fehcitously. 

I must add, that with Shallow and Silence for his theme 
Falstaff's wit fairly grows gigantic, and this too without any 
abatement of its frolicsome agility. The strain of humorous 
exaggeration with which he pursues the theme in soliloquy 
is indeed almost sublime. Yet in some of his reflections 
thereon, as in the passage just quoted, we have a clear 
though brief view of the profound philosopher underlying 
the profligate humourist and make-sport ; for he there dis- 
covers a breadth and sharpness of observation, and a depth 
of practical sagacity, such as might have placed him in the 
front rank of statesmen and sages. 

Is Falstaff a Coward? 

I have said that Falstaff", though having a peculiar vein 
of something very like cowardice, is not a coward. This 
sounds paradoxical, but I think it just. On this point Mac- 
kenzie speaks with rare exactness. " Though," says he, " I 
will not go so far as to ascribe valour to Falstaff, yet his 
cowardice, if fairly examined, will be found to be not so 
much a weakness as a principle : he has the sense of danger, 
but not the discomposure of fear." In approval of this, it 
is to be observed that amid the perilous exigencies of the 
fight his matchless brain is never a whit palsied with fear ; 
and no sooner has he fallen down to save his life by a coun- 
terfeit death, than all his wits are at work to convert his fall 
into a purchase of honour. Certainly his cowardice, if the 
word must still be applied to him, is not such as either to 
keep him out of danger or to lose him the use of his powers 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

in it. Whether surrounded with pleasures or perils, his 
sagacity never in the least forsakes him ; and his unabated 
purlings of humour when death is busy all about him, and 
even when others are taunting him with cowardice, seem 
hardly reconcilable with the character generally set upon him 
in this respect. 

As there is no touch of poetry in Falstaff, he sees nothing 
in the matter of honour but the sign ; and he has more 
good sense than to set such a value on this as to hazard 
that for which alone he holds it desirable. To have his 
name seasoned sweet in the world's regard he does not look 
upon as signifying any real worth in himself, and so furnish- 
ing just ground of self-respect ; but only as it may yield 
him the pleasures and commodities of Hfe : whereas the 
very soul of honour is, that it will sooner part with life than 
forfeit this ground of self-respect. For honour, true honour, 
is indeed a kind of social conscience. 

Relation of Falstaff and the Prince. 

Falstaff is altogether the greatest triumph of the comic 
Muse that the world has to show. In this judgment I 
believe that all who have fairly conversed with the irre- 
sistible old sinner are agreed. In the varied and delectable 
wealth of his conversation, it is not easy to select such parts 
as are most characteristic of the man ; and I have rather 
aimed to quote what would best illustrate my points than 
what is best in itself. Of a higher order and a finer texture 
than any thing I have produced is the scene where Falstaff 
personates the King, to examine the Prince upon the par- 
ticulars of his life. It is too long for quotation here ; and ] 
can but refer to it as probably the choicest issue of comic 
preparation that genius has ever bequeathed to human 
enjoyment. 



40 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Upon the whole, then, I think Falstaff may be justly 
described as having all the intellectual qualities that enter 
into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of 
the moral. If to his powers of understanding were joined 
an imagination equal, it is hardly too much to say he would 
be as great a poet as Shakespeare. And in all this we have, 
it seems to me, just the right constituents of perfect fitness 
for the dramatic purpose and exigency which his character 
was meant to answer. In his solid and clear understanding, 
his discernment and large experience, his fulness and quick- 
ness of wit and resource, and his infinite humour, what were 
else dark in the life of Prince Henry is made plain ; and we 
can hardly fail to see how he is drawn to what is in itself 
bad indeed, yet drawn in virtue of something within him 
that still prefers him in our esteem. With less of wit, sense, 
and spirit. Sir John could have got no hold on the Prince ; 
and if to these attractive qualities he had not joined others 
of a very odious and repulsive kind, he would have held 
him too fast. 

Palstaff's Immoralities. 

I suppose it is no paradox to say that, hugely as we de- 
light to be with Falstaff, he is notwithstanding just about 
the last man that any one would wish to resemble ; which 
fact, as I take it, is enough of itself to keep the pleasure of 
his part free from any moral infection or taint. And our 
repugnance to being like him is not so much because he 
offends the moral feelings as because he hardly touches 
them at all, one way or the other. The character seems to 
lie mainly out of their sphere ; and they agree to be silent 
towards him, as having practically disrobed himself of moral 
attributes. Now, however bad we may be, these are proba- 



INTRODUCTION. 4I 

bly the last elements of our being that we would consent to 
part with. Nor, perhaps, is there any thing that our nature 
so vitally shrinks away from, as to have men's moral feelings 
sleep concerning us. To be treated as beneath blame, is 
the greatest indignity that can be offered us. Who would 
not rather be hated by men than be such as they should not 
respect enough to hate ? 

This aloofness of the moral feelings seems owing in great 
part to the fact of the character impressing us, throughout, 
as that of a player ; though such a player, whose good sense 
keeps every thing stagey and theatrical out of his playing. 
He lives but to furnish, for himself and others, intellectual 
wine, and his art lies in turning every thing about him into 
this. His immoralities are mostly such wherein the ludi- 
crous element is prominent ; and in the entertainment of 
this their other qualities are lost sight of. The animal sus- 
ceptibilities of our nature are in him carried up to their 
highest pitch ; his several appetites hug their respective 
objects with exquisite gust ; his vast plumpness is all mellow 
with physical delight and satisfaction ; and he converts it 
all into thought and mirth. Moreover his speech borrows 
additional flavour and effect from the thick foldings of flesh 
which it oozes through; therefore he glories in his much 
flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests : 
if his body is fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness ; and 
in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations 
that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into 
mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a 
relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and 
through his body, to the ends of his fingers and toes ! yet 
who does not see that he has more pleasure in discoursing 
about it than in drinking it ? And so it is through all the 



42 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the 
same use of his vices and infirmities ; nay, he often carica- 
tures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, 
that he may get the same profit out of them. 

Thus Falstaff strikes us, throughout, as acting a part ; inso- 
much that our conscience of right and wrong has little more 
to do with the man himself than with a good representation 
of him on the stage. And his art, if not original and innate, 
has become second nature : if the actor was not born with 
him, it has grown to him, and become a part of him, so that 
he cannot lay it off; and if he has nobody else to entertain, 
he must still keep playing for the entertainment of himself. 
But because we do not think of applying moral tests to him, 
therefore, however we may surrender to his fascinations, we 
never feel any respect for him. And it is very considerable 
that he has no self-respect. The reason of which is close at 
hand : for respect is a sentiment of which mere players, as 
such, are not legitimate objects. Not but that actors may 
be very worthy, upright men : there have been many capital 
gentlemen among them : as such, they are indeed abundantly 
respectable : but in the useful callings men are respected for 
their calling's sake, even though their characters be not 
deserving of respect ; which seems not to be the case with 
men of the stage. And as Falstaff is no less a player to him- 
self than to others, he therefore respects himself as little as 
others respect him. 

It must not be supposed, however, that because he touches 
the moral feelings so little one way or the other, therefore his 
company and conversation were altogether harmless to those 
v\^ho actually shared them. It is not, cannot be so ; nor has 
the Poet so represented it. " Evil communications corrupt 
good manners," whether known and felt to be evil or not. 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

And so the ripe understanding of Falstaff himself teaches us : 
"It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is 
caught, as men take diseases one of another ; therefore let 
men take heed of their company." In the intercourse of 
men there are always certain secret, mysterious influences at 
work : the conversation of others affects us without our know- 
ing it, and by methods past our finding out ; and it is always 
a sacrament of harm to be in the society of those whom we 
do not respect. 

In all that happens to Falstaff, the being cast off at last by 
the Prince is the only thing that really hurts his feelings. 
And as this is the only thing that hurts him, so it is the only 
one that does him any good : for he is strangely inaccessible 
to inward suffering ; and yet nothing but this can make him 
better. His character keeps on developing, and growing 
rather worse, to the end of the play ; and there are some 
positive indications of a hard bad heart in him. His abuse 
of Shallow's hospitality is exceedingly detestable, and argues 
that hardening of all within which tells far more against a 
man than almost any amount of mere sensuality. For it is a 
great mistake to suppose that our sensual vices, though they 
may and often do work the most harm to ourselves, are 
morally the worst. The malignant vices, those that cause us 
to take pleasure in the pain or damage of others, — it is in 
these that Hell is most especially concentrated. Satan is 
neither a glutton nor a wine-bibber ; he himself stoops not to 
the lusts of the flesh, though he delights to see his poor dupes 
eaten up by them : but to gloat over or to feast on the agonies 
that one inflicts, this is truly Satanic. In the matter about 
Justice Shallow we are let into those worse traits of Falstaff, 
such as his unscrupulous and unrelenting selfishness, which 
had else escaped our dull perceptions, but which, through all 



44 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

the disguises of art, have betrayed themselves to the appre- 
hensive discernment of Prince Henry. Thus we here come 
upon the dehcate thread which connects that sapient Justice 
with what I have stated to be the main purpose of the drama. 
The bad usage which Falstaff puts upon Shallow has the effect 
of justifying to us the usage which he at last receives from 
the Prince. And something of the kind was needful in order 
to bring the Prince's character off from such an act altogether 
bright and sweet in our regard. For, after sharing so long in 
the man's prodigality of mental exhilaration, to shut down 
upon him so, was pretty hard. 

I must not leave Sir John without remarking how he is a 
sort of pubhc brain from which shoot forth nerves of commu- 
nication through all the limbs and members of the common- 
wealth. The most broadly-representative, perhaps, of all 
ideal characters, his conversations are as diversified as his 
capabilities ; so that through him the vision is let forth into a 
long-drawn yet clear perspective of old English life and man- 
ners. What a circle of vices and obscurities and nobilities 
are sucked into his train ! how various in size and quality the 
orbs that revolve around him and shine by his light ! from 
the immediate heir of England and the righteous Lord Chief 
Justice to poor Robin Ostler who died of one idea, having 
"never joy'd since the price of oats rose." He is indeed a 
multitudinous man ; and can spin fun enough out of his mar- 
vellous brain to make all the world ''laugh and grow fat." 

Mrs. Quickly the Hostess. 

We have had several glimpses of Mrs. Quickly, the Host- 
ess of Eastcheap. She is well worth a steady looking at. 
One of the most characteristic passages in the play is her 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

account of Falstaff's engagement to her; which has been 
aptly commented on by Coleridge as showing how her mind 
runs altogether in the rut of actual events. She can think 
of things only in the precise order of their occurrence, hav- 
ing no power to select such as touch her purpose, and to 
detach them from the circumstantial irrelevancies with which 
they are consorted in her memory. 

In keeping with this mental peculiarity, her character 
savours strongly of her whereabout in life ; she is plentifully 
trimmed with vices and vulgarities, and these all taste rankly 
of her place and calling, thus showing that she has as much 
of moral as of mental passiveness. Notwithstanding, she 
always has an odour of womanhood about her, even her 
worst features being such as none but a woman could have. 
Nor is her character, with all its ludicrous and censurable 
qualities, unrelieved, as we have seen, by traits of generosity 
that relish equally of her sex. It is even doubtful whether 
she would have entertained Sir John's proposals of marriage 
so favourably, but that at the time of making them he was in 
a condition to need her kindness. Her woman's heart could 
not stint itself from the plump old sinner when he had 
wounds to be dressed and pains to be soothed. And who 
but a woman could speak such words of fluttering eagerness 
as she speaks in urging on his arrest : " Do your offices, do 
your offices. Master Fang and Master Snare ; do me, do me, 
do me your offices " ; where her heart seems palpitating with 
an anxious hope that her present action may make another 
occasion for her kind ministrations ? Sometimes, indeed, she 
gets wrought up to a pretty high pitch of temper, but she 
cannot hold herself there ; and between her turns of an.a;er 
and her returns to sweetness there is room for more of 
womanly feeling than I shall venture to describe. And there 



46 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

is Still more of the woman in the cunning simplicity — or is 
it simpleness? — with which she manages to keep her good 
opinion of Sir John; as when, on being told that at his 
death "he cried out of women, and said they were devils 
incarnate," she replies, " 'A never could abide carnation ; 
'twas a colour he never liked " ; as if she could find no sense 
in his words but what would stand smooth with her interest 
and her affection. 

It is curious to observe how Mrs. Quickly dwells on the 
confines of virtue and shame, and sometimes plays over 
the borders, ever clinging to the reputation, and perhaps to 
the consciousness, of the one, without foreclosing the invi- 
tations of the other. For it is very evident that even in 
her worst doings she hides from herself their ill-favour 
under a fair name ; as people often paint the cheeks of their 
vices, and then look them sweetly in the face, though they 
cannot but know the paint is all that keeps them from 
being unsightly and loathsome. In her case, however, this 
may spring, in part, from a simplicity not unlike that which 
sometimes causes little children to shut their eyes at what 
affrights them, and then think themselves safe. And yet 
she shows considerable knowledge of the world ; is not 
without shrewdness in her way; but, in truth, the world 
her soul lives in, and grows intelligent of, is itself a disci- 
pline of moral obtuseness ; and this is one reason why she 
loves it. On the whole, therefore, Mrs. Quickly must be 
set down as a naughty woman ; the Poet clearly meant her 
so ; and, in mixing so much of good with the general pre- 
ponderance of bad in her composition, he has shown a rare 
spirit of wisdom, such as may well remind us that "both 
good men and bad men are apt to be less so than they 



INTRODUCTION. 4/ 

Shallo-w and Silence, 

Such is one formation of life to which the Poet conducts 
us by a pathway leading from Sir John. But we have an 
avenue opening out from him into a much richer formation. 
Aside from the humour of the characters themselves, there 
is great humour of art in the bringing-together of Falstaff 
and Shallow. Whose risibilities are not quietly shaken up 
to the centre, as he studies the contrast between them, and 
the sources of their interest in each other ? Shallow is 
vastly proud of his acquaintance with Sir John, and runs 
over with consequentiality as he reflects upon it. Sir John 
understands this perfectly, and is drawn to him quite as 
much for the pleasure of making a butt of him as in the 
hope of currying a road to his purse. 

One of the most potent spots in Justice Shallow is the 
exulting self-complacency with which he remembers his 
youthful essays in profligacy; wherein, though without 
suspecting it, he was the sport and byword of his compan- 
ions j he having shown in them the same boobyish alacrity 
as he now shows in prating about them. His reminiscences 
in this line are superlatively diverting, partly, perhaps, as 
reminding us of a perpetual sort of people, not unfrequently 
met with in the intercourse of life. 

Another choice spot in Shallow is a huge love or habit 
of talking on when he has nothing to say ; as though his 
tongue were hugging and kissing his words. Thus, when 
Sir John asks to be excused from staying with him over 
night : " I will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; 
excuses shall not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall 
serve ; you shall not be excused." And he lingers upon his 
words and keeps rolling them over in his mouth with a still 



48 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

keener relish in the garden after supper. This fond caress- 
ing of his phrases springs not merely from sterility of 
thought, but partly also from that vivid self-appreciation 
which causes him to dwell with such rapture on the spirited 
sallies of his youth. 

One more point about fetches the compass of his genius, 
he being considerable mainly for his loquacious thinness. 
It is well instanced in his appreciation of Sir John's witti- 
cism on Mouldy, one of the recruits he is taking up : 

Fah. Is thy name Mouldy ? 
Moul. Yea, an't please you. 
Fah. 'Tis the more time thou wert used. 

Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! most excellent, i'faith ! things that are mouldy lack 
use : very singular good ! In faith, well said. Sir John ; very well said. 

The mixture of conceit and sycophancy here is charming. 
Of course it is not so much the wit as his own perception 
of the wit, that the critic admires. 

One would suppose the force of feebleness had done its 
best in Shallow, yet it is made to do several degrees better 
in his cousin. Justice Silence. The tautology of the one 
has its counterpart in the taciturnity of the other. And 
Shallow's habit in this may have grown, in part, from talk- 
ing to his cousin, and getting no replies ; for Silence has 
scarce life enough to answer, unless it be to echo the ques- 
tion. The only faculty he seems to have is memory, and he 
has not force enough of his own to set even this in motion ; 
nothing but excess of wine can make it stir. So that his 
taciturnity is but the proper outside of his essential vacuity, 
and springs from sheer dearth of soul. He is indeed a stu- 
pendous platitude of a man ! The character is poetical by 
a sort of inversion ; as extreme ugliness sometimes has the 
effect of beauty, and fascinates the eye. 



INTRODUCTION. 49 

Shakespeare evinces a peculiar delight sometimes in 
weaving poetical conceptions round the leanest subjects; 
and we have no finer instance of this than where Silence, 
his native sterility of brain being overcome by the working 
of sack on his memory, keeps pouring forth snatches from 
old ballads. How delicately comical the volubiHty with 
which he trundles off the fag-ends of popular ditties, when 
in "the sweet of the night" his heart has grown rich with 
the exhilaration of wine ! Who can ever forget the exquis- 
ite humour of the contrast between Silence dry and Silence 
drunk? 

In this vocal flow of Silence we catch the right spirit and 
style of old English mirth. For he must have passed his 
life in an atmosphere of song, since it was only by dint of 
long custom and endless repetition that so passive a mem- 
ory as his could have got stored with such matter. And 
the snatches he sings are fragments of old minstrelsy " that 
had long been heard in the squire's hall and the yeoman's 
chimney-corner," where friends and neighbours were wont 
to "sing aloud old songs, the precious music of the heart." 

These two sapient Justices are admirably fitted to each 
other, for indeed they have worn together. Shallow highly 
appreciates his kinsman, who in turn looks up to him as his 
great man, and as a kind of superior nature. It were hardly 
fair to quit them without referring to their piece of dialogue 
about old Double ; where in all the ludicrous oddity of the 
thing we have touches that " feelingly persuade us what we 
are." And I suppose there is none so poor shell of human- 
ity but that, if we apply our ear, and listen intently, " from 
within are heard murmurings whereby the monitor expresses 
mysterious union with its native sea." It is considerable 
that this bit of dialogue occurs at our first meeting with the 



50 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Speakers ; as if on purpose to set and gauge our feelings 
aright towards them ; to forestall and prevent an overmuch 
rising of contempt for them ; which is probably about the 
worst feeling we can cherish. 

Concluding Remarks. 

The drama of Ki7ig Henry the Fourth, taking the two 
Parts as artistically one, is deservedly ranked among the 
very highest of Shakespeare's achievements. The charac- 
terization, whether for quantity or quality or variety, or 
again whether regarded in the individual development or 
the dramatic combination, is above all praise. And yet, 
large and free as is the scope here given to invention, the 
parts are all strictly subordinated to the idea of the whole 
as an historical drama; insomuch that even Falstaff, richly 
ideal as is the character, everywhere helps on the history ; 
a whole century of old English wit and sense and humour 
being crowded together and compacted in him. And one 
is surprised withal, upon reflection, to see how many scraps 
and odd minutes of intelligence are here to be met with. 
The Poet seems indeed to have been almost everywhere, 
and brought away some tincture and relish of the place ; as 
though his body were set full of eyes, and every eye took 
in matter of thought and memory : here we have the smell 
of eggs and butter; there we turn up a fragment of old 
John of Gaunt ; elsewhere we chance upon a pot of Tewks- 
bury mustard; again we hit a bit of popular superstition, 
how Earl Douglas " runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicu- 
lar " : on the march with Falstaff, we contemplate " the 
cankers of a calm world and a long peace " ; at Clement's 
Inn we hear "the chimes at midnight"; at Master Shal- 



INTRODUCTION. 5I 

low's we " eat a last year's pippin of my own grafting, with 
a dish of caraways and so forth " : now we are amidst the 
poetries of chivalry and the felicities of victory ; now amidst 
the obscure sufferings of war, where its inexorable iron hand 
enters the widow's cottage, and snatches away the land's 
humblest comforts. And so I might go on indefinitely, the 
particulars in this kind being so numerous as might well dis- 
tract the mind, yet so skilfully composed that the "number 
seems not large, till by a special effort of thought one goes 
to viewing them severally. And these particulars, though so 
unnoticed or so little noticed in the detail, are 'nevertheless 
so ordered that they all tell in the result. How strong is the 
principle of organic unity and life pervading the whole, may 
be specially instanced in Falstaff; whose sayings everywhere 
so fit and cleave to the circumstances, to all the oddities 
of connection and situation out of which they grow; have 
such a mixed smacking, such a various and composite relish, 
made up from all the peculiarities of the person by whom, 
the occasion wherein, and the purpose for which they are 
spoken, that they cannot be detached and set out by them- 
selves without thwarting or greatly marring their force and 
flavour. Thus in the farthest extremities of the work we feel 
the beatings of one common heart. On the whole, we may 
safely afiirm with Dr. Johnson, that " perhaps no author has 
ever, in two plays, afforded so much delight." 



KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



his 
Sons. 



King Henry the Fourth 
Henry, Prince of Wales, 
Thomas, Duke of Clarence, 
Prince John of Lancaster, 
Humphrey, DukeofGloster 
Earl of Warwick, -j ^f ^^e 

Earl of Westmoreland, I King's 

GOWER, HarCOURT, J Party. 

Sir William Gascoigne, Lord 

Chief Justice. 
A Gentleman attending on him. 
Earl of Northumberl'd, 
Scroop, Archbp. of York, 
Lord Mowbray, 
Lord Hastings, 
Lord Bardolph, 
Sir John Coleville, 



igamst 

the 
King. 



Travers and Mortox, Retainers 

of Northumberland. 
Falstaff, Bardolph, Pistol, and 

a Page. 
PoiNTZ and Peto. 
Shallow and Silence. 
Davy, Servant to Shallow. 



Mouldy. Shadow. 



Wart, Feeble, and V Recruits. 

BULLCALF, J 

Fang and Snare, Sheriff's Officers. 

Rumour, the Presenter. 

A Porter. A Dancer, 

Lady NorthumberlanDo 
Lady Percy. 
Hostess Quickly. 
Doll Tearsheet. 



Ladies, and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, 
Grooms, &c. 

Scene. — England. 



INDUCTION. 



Warkworth, Before Northumberland's Castle. 

Enter Rumour, painted fidl of tongues.^ 

Rum. Open your ears ; for which of you will stop 
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks ? 

1 Such was the common way of representing this personage, no unfr©- 



54 THE SECOND PART OF INDUCTION, 

I, from the Orient to the drooping West, 
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold 
The acts commenced on this ball of Earth ; 
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride. 
The which in every language I pronounce, 
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. 
I speak of peace, while covert enmity. 
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world : 
And who but Rumour, who but only I, 
Make fearful musters and prepared defence. 
Whilst the big year, swoln with some other grief. 
Is thought so made by the stern tyrant war, 
And no such matter ? Rumour is a pipe 
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures ; 
And of so easy and so plain a stop,^ 
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, 
The still-discordant wavering multitude. 
Can play upon it. But what^ need I thus 
My well-known body to anatomize 
Among my household ? Why is Rumour here ? 
I run before King Harry's victory ; 
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury, 

quent character in the masques of the Poet's time. In a masque on St. 
Stephen's Night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a skin 
coat full of winged tongues. Students of Latin will at once recognize the 
substantial likeness, not to say identity, of Shakespeare's Rumour and Vir- 
gil's Fama ; one side of whose nature is choicely described in the following 
from Bacon's Essay of Fame : " The poets make Fame a monster : they de- 
scribe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously ; 
they say, Look, how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath under- 
neath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks up so many ears." 

2 The slops are the holes in a flute or pipe. 

3 W/taf occurs very often, as here, with the exact force of the interroga- 
tive wAy. 



INDUCTION. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 55 

Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops, 

Quenching the flame of bold rebellion 

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I 

To speak so true at first ? my office is 

To noise abroad, that Harry Monmouth fell 

Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword ; 

And that the King before the Douglas' rage 

Stoop'd his annointed head as low as death. 

This have I rumour'd through the pleasant towns 

Between that royal field of Shrewsbury 

And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,* 

Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland, 

Lies crafty-sick : the posts come tiring on, 

And not a man of them brings other news 

Than they have learn'd of me : from Rumour's tongues 

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.^ 

4 Warkworth Castle, the residence of Northumberland. 

5 Here wrongs evidently means harms, hurts, disasters, or discomforts ; as 
" true wrongs " stands in full antithesis to " comforts ya/j.?." And wrongh.'as 
the same radical sense as wring and wrest, all being from the same root. 
So in Julius Ccesar, iii. i : " Caesar did never wrong but v^^ith Just cause, nor 
without cause will he be satisfied." 



$6 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

ACT I. 

Scene I. — T/ie Same, 
Enter Lord Bardolph. 
Z. Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho ? 

Enter Porter, above. 

Where is the earl? 
Port. What shall I say you are ? 
Z. Bard. Tell thou the earl 

That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here. 

Poi't. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard : 
Please it your Honour, knock but at the gate. 
And he himself will answer. 

Z. Bard. Here comes the earl. 

\_Exit Porter above. 

Enter Northumberland. 

North. What news, Lord Bardolph ? every minute now 
Should be the father of some stratagem : i 
The times are wild ; contention, like a horse 
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose. 
And bears down all before him. 

Z. Bard. Noble earl, 

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. 

North. Good, an God will ! 

Z. Bard. As good as heart can wish : 

1 Stratagem for dreadful event or calamity. So in j Henry VI., ii. 5 : 
" What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, this deadly quarrel daily doth 
beget ! " 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 5/ 

The King is almost wounded to the death ; 

And, in the fortune of my lord your son, 

Prince Harry slain outright ; and both the Blunts 

Kiird by the hand of Douglas ; young Prince John 

And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field ; 

And Harry Monmouth's brawn,^ the hulk Sir John, 

Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day, 

So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, 

Came not till now to dignify the times. 

Since Caesar's fortunes ! 

North. How is this derived? 

Saw you the field ? came you from Shrewsbur}^ ? 

L. Bai'd. I spake with one, my lord, that came from 
thence, 
A gentleman well bred and of good name. 
That freely render'd me these news for true. 

North. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent 
On Tuesday last to listen after news. 

Z. Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way ; 
And he is furnish'd with no certainties 
More than he haply may retail from me. 

Enter Travers. 

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you? 

Tra. My lord. Sir John Umfreville turn'd me back 
With joyful tidings ; and, being better horsed. 
Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard 
A gentleman, almost forspent ^ with speed, 

2 Prince Henry was surnamed Monmouth from the town of that name in 
Wales, where he was born. — Brawn, here, is roll of JLesh. See page 103, 
note 16, First Part. 

3 Forspent is spent utterly ; the prepositive for being here intensive. 



58 THE SECOND PART OF ACT 

That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse. 

He ask'd the way to Chester ; and of him 

I did demand what news from Shrewsbury : 

He told me that rebellion had ill luck, 

And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. 

With that, he gave his able horse the head, 

And, bending forward, struck his armed heels 

Against the panting sides of his poor jade 

Up to the rowel-head ; and, starting so. 

He seem'd in running to devour the way,^ 

Staying no longer question. 

North. Ha ! Again : 

Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold? 
Of Hotspur, Coldspur ? that rebellion 
Had met ill luck? 

Z. Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what : 

If my young lord your son have not the day, 
Upon mine honour, for a silken point ^ 
I'll give my barony : ne'er talk of it. 

North. Why should the gentleman that rode by Travers 
Give, then, such instances of loss ? 

L.Bard. Who, he? 

He was some hilding fellow,^ that had stol'n 
The horse he rode on ; and, upon my life. 
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news. 

Enter Morton. 

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,"^ 



4 So in Job : " He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage." 

5 A silken point is a tagged lace. See page 107, note 26, First Part. 

6 Hilding was a term of contempt for a vile, cowardly person. 

7 Alluding to the title-pages of elegies, which were printed all black. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 59 

Foretells the nature of a tragic volume : 

So looks the strand whereon th' imperious flood 

Hath left a witness 'd usurpation.^ — 

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? 

Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord ; 
Where hateful Death put on his ugliest mask 
To fright our party. 

North. How doth my son and brother? 

Thou tremblest ; and the whiteness in thy cheek 
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. 
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless. 
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone. 
Drew Priam's curtain ^ in the dead of night. 
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt ; 
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue. 
And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it. 
This thou wouldst say, Your son did thus and thus; 
Your brother thus ; so fought the noble Douglas ; 
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds ; 
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed. 
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise, 
Ending with Brother, son, and all are dead. 

Mor, Douglas is living, and your brother, yet ; 
But, for my lord your son, — 

North. Why, he is dead. 

See what a ready jongue suspicion hath ! 
He that but fears the thing he would not know 
Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes 
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton ; 

8 An attestation of its ravage. Usurpation very much in the sense of 
encroachment ; invading another's rights. 

9 That is, withdrew the curtain, or drew it aside. 



60 THE SECOND PART OF 

Tell thou thy earl his divination lies, 

And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, 

And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. 

Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid : 
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain, 

North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. 
I see a strange confession in thine eye : 
Thou shakest thy head, and hold'st it fear^^ or sin 
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so ; 
The tongue offends not that reports his death : 
And he doth sin that doth behe the dead. 
Not he which says the dead is not alive. 
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news 
Hath but a losing office ; and his tongue 
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,^! 
Remember'd knolhng a departing friend. 

L. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. 

Mor. I'm sorry I should force you to believe 
That which I would to God I had not seen ; 
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, 
Rendering faint quittance,!^ wearied and outbreathed, 
To Harry Monmouth ; whose swift wrath beat down 
The never-daunted Percy to the earth. 



10 Fear for danger, or the thing feared, or that should be feared. 
, 11 Sullen, here, Ks gloomy or dismal. Often so. — The allusion is to what 
was called the passing-h^Xi ; it being an old custom in England to give 
notice, by the tolling of a bell, when any one was in the agonies of death, 
that those who heard it might offer up their prayers in behalf of the dying 
person. So Sir Thomas Browne, in Religio Medici, 1643 : " I never hear 
the toll of a passing-bell, though in my mirth, without my prayers and best 
wishes for the departing spirit." 

12 Quittance is requital or return. A feeble return of blows is the mean- 
ing. The Poet has quittance repeatedly so, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 6l 

From whence with Hfe he never more sprung up. 
In few, his death — whose spirit lent a fire 
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp — 
Being bruited i^ once, took fire and heat away 
From the best-temper'd courage in his troops ; 
For fi-om his metal was his party steel'd ; 
Which once in him abated, all the rest 
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead '. 
And as the thing that's heavy in itself. 
Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, 
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss, 
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear, 
That arrows fly not swifter toward their aim 
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety. 
Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester 
Too soon ta'en prisoner ; and that furious Scot, 
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword 
Had three times slain th' appearance of the King, 
Gan vail his stomach, ^^ and did grace the shame 
Of those that turn'd their backs ; and in his flight. 
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all 
Is, that the King hath won ; and hath sent out 
A speedy power t' encounter you, my lord. 
Under the conduct of young Lancaster 
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full. 

North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn. 
In poison there is physic ; and these news. 
Having been well, that would have made me sick. 



18 Bruited is noised abroad or reported. 

14 Began to fall his courage, to let his spirits sink under his fortune. To 
vail is to lower, to cast down. — Stomach was often used for courage, and 
sometimes for pride. 



62 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

Being sick, have in some measure made me well : 

And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints, 

Like strengthless hinges, buckle ^^ under hfe, 

Impatient of his fit, breaks Hke a fire 

Out of his keeper's arms ; even so my limbs, 

Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief/^ 

Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice ^"^ crutch ! 

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel. 

Must glove this hand : and hence, thou sickly quoif ! ^^ 

Thou art a guard too wanton for the head 

Which princes, flesh'd i^ with conquest, aim to hit. 

Now bind my brows with iron ; and approach 

The ragged'st^o hour that time and spite dare bring 

To frown upon th' enraged Northumberland ! 

Let heaven kiss earth ! now let not Nature's hand 

Keep the wild flood confined ! let order die ! 

And let this world no longer be a stage 

To feed contention in a lingering act ; 

But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 

Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set 

On bloody courses, the rude scene may end. 

And darkness be the burier of the dead ! 

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. 

15 To buckle is to bend ; as in our American phrase, " buckle down to it." 
The word is used as a transitive verb in Bacon's Advancement of Learning : 
" Reason doth buckle and bow the mind to the nature of things." 

16 Grief, in the latter part of this line, is used in its present sense, for 
sorrow ; in the former part, for bodily pain. 

1'^ Nice is here used in the sense of effeminate, delicate, tender. 

18 Sickly quoif is cap or hood worn in sickness. The word- occurs again 
in The Winter's Tale, iv. 3 : " Golden quoifs and stomachers." 

19 Fleslid is elated ox made exultant ; flushed. See King John, page 126, 
note 5. 

20 Both ragged and rugged were sometimes used for rough. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 63 

Z. Bard. Sweet ^^ earl, divorcfe not wisdom from your 
honour. 

Mor. The Hves of all your loving complices 
Lean on your health ; the which, if you give o'er 
To stormy passion, must perforce decay. 
You cast th' event of war, my noble lord, 
And summ'd th' account of chance, before you said^ 
Let us make head. It was your presurmise 
That, in the dole 22 of blows, your son might drop ; 
You knew he walk'd o'er perils on an edge, 
More likely to fall in than to get o'er ; 
You were advised his flesh was capable ^^ 
Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit 
Would lift him where most trade ^^ of danger ranged : 
Yet did you say, Go forth ; and none of this, 
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain 
The stiff-borne action : ^^ what hath, then, befall'n. 
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth, 
More than that being which was like to be ? 

L. Bard. We all that are engaged to^^ this loss 
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas, 
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one ; 

21 The old poets apply sweet to persons precisely as we do dear. 

22 Dole is a dealing or distribution. So the Poet has " dole of honour." 

23 Advised is the same as knew, or were aware. — Capable is susceptible, 
— To " walk o'er perils on an edge " is to cross a deep ravine or chasm on 
the edge of a plank, or something as narrow as that,. So in the First Part, 
i. 3 : " As full of peril as to o'er-walk a current roaring loud on the unstead- 
fast footing of a spear." 

24 Trade for resort or concourse. See Richard the Second, page 114, 
note 14. 

25 Stiff-borne is obstinately maintained. So the Bible has stiff-necked for 
obstinate. 

26 Such was the common phraseology of the time. 



64 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed 
Choked the respect ^^ of Hkely peril fear'd ; 
And, since we are o'erset, venture again. 
Come, we will all put forth, body and goods. 

Mor. 'Tis more than time : and, my most noble lord, 
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth. 
The gentle Archbishop of York is up 
With well-appointed 2^ powers : he is a man 
Who with a double surety binds his followers. 
My lord your son had only but the corpse',^^ 
But shadows and the shows of men, to fight ; 
For that same word, rebellion, did divide 
The action of their bodies from their souls ; 
And they did fight with queasiness,^^ constrain'd, 
As men drink potions ; that^^ their weapons only 
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls, 
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up. 
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop 
Turns insurrection to religion : 
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts. 
He's follow'd both with body and with mind ; 
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood ^^ 
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones ; 
Derives from Heaven his quarrel and his cause ; 
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,^^ 

2" Here, as often, respect is consideration or regard. 

28 Well-appointed is vfeW-eguipped, vieW-furnished. Often so. 

29 Here, again, corpse' is a contraction for corpses. 
80 Queasiness is squeamishness, disgust, or nausea. 

^1 That for so that, or insomuch that ; a very frequent usage. 
32 Augments or strengthens the insurrection by carrying about the blood 
of King Richard, to which the people flock as a hallowed relic. 

«3 That is, stand over his country, as she lies bleeding and prostrate, to 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 6$ 

Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke ; 
And more and less^^ do flock to follow him. 

North. I knew of this before ; but, to speak truth, 
This present grief had wiped it from my mind. 
Go in with me ; and counsel every man 
The aptest way for safety and revenge : 
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed ; 
Never so few, and never yet more need. \Exeunt 

Scene II. — London. A Street. 

Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and 
buckler. 

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water ?i 
Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy 
water; but, for the party that owed^ it, he might have more 
diseases than he knew for. 

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird ^ at me : the 
brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to 
invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent 
or is invented on me : I am not only witty in myself, but the 
cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee 
like a sow that hath overwhelm'd all her litter but one. If 
the Prince put thee into my service for any other reason than 

protect her. It was the office of a friend to protect his fallen comrade in 
battle in this manner. See First Part Henry IV., page 171, note 11. 
34 More and /ess is great and sfnall ; that is, all ranks of people. 

1 One of the old medical quackeries was, to make a diagnosis by in- 
specting the patient's urine, and instruments called urinals were in common 
use for that purpose. The practice is often alluded to by old writers. 

2 Owed for owned, as usual. See The Tempest, page 70, note 92. 

3 Gifford says that gird is but a metathesis of gride, meaning, literally, a 
thrust, a blow; metaphorically, a smart stroke of wit, a taunt, or sarcastic 
retort. 



66 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

to set me off, why, then I have no judgment. Thou whore- 
son mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to 
wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with an agate "* till 
now : but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in 
^ile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for 
a jewel, — the juvenal,^ the Prince your master, whose chin 
is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the 
palm of my hand than he shall ^ get one on his cheek ; and 
yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal ! God 
may finish it when He will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet : he may 
keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn 
sixpence out of it ; ''' and yet he'll be crowing as if he had 
writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep 
his own grace, but he's almost out of mine, I can assure him. 
What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short 
cloak and my slops ? ^ 

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assur- 
ance than Bardolph : he would not take his bond and yours ; 
he liked not the security. 

4 The words mandrake and agate refer to the small size of the Page. The 
mandrake is an herb of narcotic qualities, which, being forked in the root, 
was said to resemble a human creature, and to utter a cry when pulled up 
from the earth. Agates were often cut into images, to be worn in rings and 
brooches, and thence came to be used metaphorically for diminutive per- 
sons. So, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio describes Queen Mab to be " no 
bigger than an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman." 

5 Juvenal for 2i youth; so used repeatedly by Shakespeare, and very often 
by Chaucer. 

s This well illustrates the old indiscriminate use of shall and will. Here, 
according to the present idiom, the two should change places. 

7 Steevens imagines that there may be a quibble intended on the coin 
called a real, or royal ; that a barber can no more earn sixpence by his face 
than by the face stamped on the coin, the one requiring as little shaving as 
the other. 

8 Slops is large trousers or breeches. See Much Ado, page 72, note 6. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 6/ 

Fal. Let him be damn'd, like the glutton ! pray God his 
tongue be hotter ! ^ A whoreson Achitophel ! a rascally 
yea-forsooth knave ! ^^ to bear a gentleman in hand,!^ and 
then stand upon security ! The whoreson smooth-pates do 
now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at 
their girdles ; and if a man is thorough with them in honest 
taking-up,i2 then they must stand upon security. I had as 
lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it 
with security. I look'd 'a should have sent me two-and- 
twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends 
me security. Well, he may sleep in security ; for he hath 
the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines 
through it : and yet cannot he see, though he have his own 
lantern to light him.^^ Where's Bardolph? 

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your Worship a 
horse. 

Fal. I bought him in Paul's,!^ and he'll buy me a horse 



9 Alluding, evidently, to the parable of Dives and Lazarus : " That he 
may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue ; for I am tor- 
mented in this flame." 

10 Meaning, apparently, a tradesman who says, " Yes, indeed," when 
asked if he will sell goods on credit, so as to encourage the purchase, and 
then snap the purchaser. 

11 To bear in hand is to wheedle with false expectations. See Much 
Ado, page loo, note 20. 

12 That is, in their debt, by taking up goods on credit. 

13 A note-worthy string of punning metaphors, turning on the different 
senses of horn. Lanterns used to be made partly of horn. Of allusions to 
the horns of a dishonoured husband, we have more than enough. 

14 In the olden time St. Paul's Cathedral was a common resort of politi- 
cians, newsmongers, men of business, idlers, gamesters, smashed-up roues, 
and all such who lived by their wits. Spendthrift debtors also fled thither, 
a part of the cathedral being privileged irom arrest. Tradesmen and mas- 
terless serving men also set up their advertisements there : and such of the 
latter as had been cast off were to be had there at all times. Which last 



6S THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

in Smithfield : an I could get me but a wife in the stews, 
I were manned, horsed, and wived. 

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the 
Prince for striking him about Bardolph. 

Pa/. Wait close ; ^^ I will not see him. 

Enter the Chief- Justice and a7i Attendant. 

Ch.Just. What's he that goes there? 

Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. 

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? 

Atten. He, my lord : but he hath since done good ser- 
vice at Shrewsbury ; and, as I hear, is now going with some 
charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. 

Ch. Just. What, to York ? Call him back again. 

Atten. Sir John Falstaff ! 

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf. 

Page. You must speak louder ; my master is deaf. 

Ch.Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing 
good. — Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with 
him. 

Atten. Sir John, — 

Fal. What ! a young knave, and begging ! Is there not 
wars? is there not employment? doth not the King lack 
subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a 
shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg 
than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name 
of rebellion can tell how to make it. 



circumstance is thus referred to in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy : " He 
that marries a wife out of a suspected inn or alehouse, buys a horse in 
Smithfield, and hires a servant in Paul's, as the diverb is, shall likely have a 
jade to his horse, a knave for his man, an arrant honest woman to his wife." 
15 Close is secret. Falstaff means, " Hold still, and pretend ignorance." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 69 

Atten. You mistake me, sir. 

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man ? set- 
ting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had hed in 
my throat, if I had said so. 

Aiten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your 
soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in 
your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. 

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so ! I lay aside that 
which grows to me ! If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang 
me ; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hang'd. You 
hunt counter : ^^ hence ! avaunt ! 

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. 

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 

Fal. My good lord ! God give your lordship good time 
of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad : I heard 
say your lordship was sick : I hope your lordship goes abroad 
by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, 
hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the salt- 
ness of time ; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to 
have a reverent care of your health. 

Ch.Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition 
to Shrewsbury. 

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is re- 
turned with some discomfort ^"^ from Wales. 

Ch. Just. I talk not of his Majesty : you would not come 
when I sent for you. 

16 To hunt counter was to hunt the wrong way, to trace the scent back- 
wards ; to hunt it by the heel is the technical phrase. Falstaff means to tell 
the man that he is on a wrong scent. 

17 That is, returned somewhat discomfited. A rather euphemistic phrase 
for defeated. What with Glendower's ability and what with the malice of 
the elements, the King's army had been utterly routed. But he ascribed hi& 
defeat to the Welshman's majric arts and incantations. 



70 



THE SECOND PART OF 



Fal And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen into this 
same whoreson apoplexy. 

Ch. Just. Well, God mend him ! I pray you, let me speak 
with you. 

FaL This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, 
an't please your lordship ; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a 
whoreson tingling. 

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it ? be it as it is. 
FaL It hath its original from much grief, from study, and 
perturbation of the brain : I have read the cause of his effects 
in Galen : it is a kind of deafness. 

Ch.Jiist. I think you are fallen into the disease; for you 
hear not what I say to you. 

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please 
you, it is the disease of not Hstening, the malady of not mark- 
ing, that I am troubled withal. 

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels i^ would amend the 
attention of your ears ; and I care not if I do become your 
physician. 

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient : 
your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me 
in respect of poverty ; but how I should be your patient to 
follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a 
scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. 

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against 
you for your life, to come speak with me. 



18 To punish a man by the heels is, I take it, to set him in the stocks, as 
Kent is punished in King Lear, ii. 2. Lord Campbell, however, says that 
"to lay by the heels was the technical expression for committing to prison." 
But I doubt whether such be the meaning here. It is "punish by the heels " ; 
and stocking is one form of imprisonment. The matter is well shown in the 
case of Leonard Fairfield, in Lord Lytton's My Novel. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. /I 

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the 
laws of this land-service, I did not come.^^ 

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great 
infamy. 

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less. 

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is 
great. 

Fal. I would it were otherwise ; I would my means were 
greater, and my waist slenderer. 

Ch.Just. You have misled the youthful Prince. 

Fal. The young Prince hath misled me : I am the fellow 
with the great belly, and he my dog. 

Ch.Just. Well, I am loth to gall a new-heal'd wound: 
your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over 
your night's exploit on Gads-hill : you may thank the un- 
quiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action. 

Fal My lord,— 

Ch.Just. But, since all is well, keep it so: wake not a 
sleeping wolf. 

Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. 

Ch. Just. What ! you are as a candle, the better part 
burnt out. 

Fal. A wassail candle,^^ my lord ; all tallow : if I did say 
of wax, my growth would approve the truth. 

Ch.Just. There is not a white hair on your face but should 
have his effect of gravity. 

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. 

19 The Poet shows some knowledge of the law here ; for, in fact, a man 
employed as Falstaff then was could not be held to answer in a prosecution 
for an offence of the kind in question. 

20 A wassail candle is a large candle lighted up at a feast. There is a 
quibble upon wax ; referring to the substance that candles are made of, and 
to what is signified by the verb to wax. 



*J2 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 

Ch. Just, You follow the young Prince up and down, like 
his ill angel. 

Fal. Not so, my lord ; your ill angel is light ; ^^ but I hope 
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing : and 
yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell.^^ 
Virtue is of so httle regard in these costermonger ^3 times, 
that true valour is turn'd bear-herd : pregnancy ^"^ is made a 
tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings : 
all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this 
age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are 
old consider not the capacities of us that are young ; you 
measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your 
galls : 25 and we that are in the vaward of our youth,^'^ I must 
confess, are wags too. 

Ch.Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of 
youth, that are written down old with all the characters of 
age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow 
cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly ? 
is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double. 



21 Falstaff is still punning. He here refers to the coin called ange I, ^Nhich. 
of course grew lighter as it was clipped or became worn. " As light as a 
dipt angel" was a frequent comparison at that time. See The Merchant, 
page 124, note 7. 

22 Cannot go refers to the passing of money ; cannot tell, to the counting 
or telling of it. — " In some respects" here means for some cause, reason, or 
consideration. 

23 Costard was the old name for an apple : a coster-monger therefore was 
an apple-pedler. Here, however, the word is used to denote a time of petty 
traffic, or huckstering. 

24 Pregnancy is fulness of wit and invention. 

25 You look with bilious asperity upon our warm blood ; the " hot tem- 
per," that " leaps o'er a cold decree." 

26 Vaward is an old word for vanguard. People in the vaward of their 
youth, I suppose, are people just ■passing out of their youth. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 73 

your wit single,^^ and every part about you blasted with 
antiquity ? and will you yet call yourself young ? Fie, fie, fie. 
Sir John ! 

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the 
afternoon, with a white head and someihing a round belly. 
For my voice, — I have lost it with hallooing, and singing of 
anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not : the 
truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding ; and 
he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend 
me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear 
that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and 
you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd him for it ; 
and the young lion repents ; marry, not in ashes and sack- 
cloth, but in new silk and old sack. 

Ch. Just. Well, God send the Prince a better companion ! 

Fal. God send the companion a better prince ! I cannot 
rid my hands of him. 

Ch. Just. Well, the King hath sever'd you and Prince 
Harry : I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster 
against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. 

Fal. Yea ; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look 
you pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at home, that our 
armies join not in a hot day ; for, by the Lord, I take but 
two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordi- 
narily : if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my 
bottle, I would I might never spit white again.^^ There is 

27 Single is simple, feeble. Single-witted and single-souled were common 
epithets, to designate simple persons. The Justice insensibly catches Fal- 
staff' s style, and slides into a tilt of wit with him, having in single a sly refer- 
ence to double, just before. 

28 I am not clear as to what Sir John means by invoking upon himself 
the evil of " never spitting white again." The natural explanation is, that 
drinking deep of his favourite beverage had or was supposed to have that 



74 



THE SECOND PART OF ACT I. 



not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am 
thrust upon it : well, I cannot last ever : but it was alway yet 
the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to 
make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, 
you should give me rest. I would to God my name were 
not so terrible to the enemy as it is : I were better to be 
eaten to death with rust than to be scour' d to nothing with 
perpetual motion. 

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest ; and God bless your 
expedition ! 

FaL Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to fur- 
nish me forth? 29 

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny ; you are too impa- 
tient to bear crosses.^^ Fare you well : commend me to my 
cousin Westmoreland. {^Exeunt Chief-Justice and Attendant. 

Fal. If I do, filip me with a three-man beetle.^i — Boy ! 

Page. Sir? 

Fal. What money is in my purse ? 



effect. And such, I believe, is the fact. Heating drinks are apt to render 
the mouth frothy. And perhaps the humour Hes in taking an unpleasant 
effect of a pleasant indulgence. 

29 The Judge has just been exhorting him to honesty : he therefore says, 
" Will your lordship let me have something to be honest with ? If you will 
lend me a thousand pounds, I will agree not to steal for a while." 

30 The Judge grows more and more facetious, and at last falls to down- 
right punning ; thus showing that Falstaff is " not only witty in himself, but 
the cause that wit is in other men." Crosses were pieces of money. See As 
You Like It, page 6i, note i. 

31 This alludes to a common but cruel diversion of boys, called filliping 
the toad. They lay a board two or three feet long at right angles over a 
transverse piece two or three inches thick ; then, the toad being put on one 
end of the board, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws 
the poor toad forty or fifty feet from the earth ; and the fall generally kills 
it. A three-man beetle is a heavy beetle, with three handles, used in driving 
piles. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 75 

Page. Seven groats and two pence. 

Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the 
purse : borrowing only Hngers and lingers it out, but the dis- 
ease is incurable. — Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lan- 
caster ; this to the Prince ; this to the Earl of Westmore- 
land ; and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly 
sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my 
chin. About it : you know where to find me. \_Exit Page.] 
— A pox of this gout ! for it plays the rogue with my great 
toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt ; I have the wars for my 
colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A 
good wit will make use of any thing : I will turn diseases to 
commodity. \Exit. 



Scene IIL — York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace. 

Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray, and 
Bardolph. 

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause and know our 
means ; 
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all 
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes : — 
And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it? 

Mowb. I well allow th' occasion of our arms ; 
But gladly would be better satisfied 
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves 
To look with forehead bold and big enough 
Upon the power and puissance o' the King. 

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file 
To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice ; 
And our supplies lie largely in the hope 



*j6 THE SECOND PART OF ACT 1. 

Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns 
With an incensed fire of injuries.^ 

L. Bard. The question, then. Lord Hastings, standeth 
thus : 
Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand 
May hold up head without Northumberland. 

Hast. With him, we may. 

Z. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point : 

But, if without him we be thought too feeble. 
My judgment is, we should not step too far 
Till we had his assistance by the hand ; 
For, in a theme so bloody-faced as this. 
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise 
Of aids incertain, should not be admitted. 

Arch. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph ; for, indeed. 
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. 

L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined^ himself with hope, 
Eating the air on promise of supply. 
Flattering himself with project of a power 
Much smaller 3 than the smallest of his thoughts : 
And so, with great imagination. 
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death. 
And, winking, leap'd into destruction. 

Hast But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt 
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. 

L. Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war : 
Indeed, the instant ^ act and cause on foot 

1 "An incensed fire of injuries " is a fire kindled by wrongs. 

2 To line is to strengthen, as lining strengthens a garment. Shakespeare 
has it repeatedly so. See the First Part, page 96, note 10. 

3 That is, which turned out to be much smaller. 

4 Instant is here used in the sense of the Latin instans, — pressing or i?n- 
pending. — "Yes," says his lordship, "it has done hurt to proceed upon 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 77 

Lives so in hope, as in an early Spring 

We see th' appearing buds ; which to prove fruit, 

Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair 

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build. 

We first survey the plot, then draw the model ; 

And when we see the figure of the house. 

Then must we rate the cost of the erection ; 

Which if we find outweighs ability. 

What do we then but draw anew the model 

In fewer offices,^ or at last desist 

To build at all ? Much more, in this great work, — 

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down. 

And set another up, — should we survey 

The plot of situation and the model. 

Consent upon a sure foundation. 

Question surveyors, know our own estate, 

How able such a work to undergo, 

And weigh against his opposite ; ^ or else 

We fortify on paper and in figures. 

Using the names of men instead of men : 

Like one that draws the model of a house 

Beyond his power to build it ; who, half through. 

Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost 

mere likelihoods and forms of hope in this business or occupation of war." 
He then goes on reasoning very soberly and justly from the recent case of 
Hotspur, and applies the lesson of that miscarriage to the action now 
pressing upon them. 

5 In the old English castles and palaces, certain roojns or apartments 
were called offices. 

6 His refers, apparently, to estate. The sense is somewhat obscure, but 
may be given thus : " We should know how able our estate is to meet, or 
balance, the outlay that assails or threatens it." The use of his for its has 
been repeatedly noted, and occurs several times in the preceding scene ; as, 
" I have read the cause of his effects," and, " should have his effect of gravity." 



78 THE SECOND PART OF ACT I 

A naked subject to the weeping clouds, 
And waste for churlish Winter's tyranny. 

Hast. Grant that our hopes — yet likely of fair birth— 
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd 
The utmost man of expectation ; 
I think we are a body strong enough, 
Even as we are, to equal with the King. 

L. Bard. What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand? 

Hast. To us no more ; nay, not so much. Lord Bardolph, 
For his divisions, as the times do brawl, 
Are in three heads : one power against the French,''' 
And one against Glendower ; perforce a third 
Must take up us : so is the unfirm King 
In three divided ; and his coffers sound 
With hollow poverty and emptiness. 

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths togethei, 
And come against us in full puissance, 
Need not be dreaded. 

Hast. If he should do so, 

To French and Welsh he leaves his back unarm'd, 
They baying him at the heels : never fear that. 

L. Bard. Who is it like should lead his forces hither? 

Hast. The Duke of Lancaster ^ and Westmoreland ; 
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth : 
But who is substituted 'gainst the French, 

■^ During this rebellion of Northumberland and the Archbishop, a French 
army of twelve thousand men landed at Milford Haven, in aid of Owen 
Glendower. 

8 This is an anachronism. Prince John of Lancaster was not created a 
duke till the second year of the reign of his brother, King Henry V. At 
this time Prince Henry was actually Duke of Lancaster. Shakespeare was 
misled by Stowe, who, speaking of the first Parliament of King Henry IV., 
says, " His second sonne was there made duke of Lancaster." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 79 

I have no certain notice. 

Arch. Let us on, 

And publish the occasion of our arms. 
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice ; 
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited : 
An habitation giddy and unsure 
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 
O thou fond many ! with what loud applause 
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, 
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be ! 
And, being now trimm'd in thine own desires. 
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, 
That thou provokest thyself to cast him up. 
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge 
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard ; 
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up. 
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times ? 
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die, 
Are now become enamour'd on his grave : 
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head 
When through proud London he came sighing on 
After th' admired heels of Bolingbroke, 
Criest now, O earth, yield us that king again, 
And take thou this I O thoughts of men accurst ! 
Past, and to come, seems best ; things present, worst. 

Mowb, Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on ? 

Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone, 

\Exeunt 



80 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IL 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — London. A Street. 

Enter the Hostess, Fang and his Boy with her, and Snare 
following. 

Host. Master Fang, have you enter'd the exion ? i 

Fang. It is enter'd. 

Host. Where's your yeoman P^ Is't a lusty yeoman? will 
'astandto't? 

Fang. Sirrah, where 's Snare? 

Host. O Lord, ay ! good Master Snare. 

Snare. Here, here. 

Fang. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstafif. 

Host. Yea, good Master Snare ; I have enter'd him and all. 

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he 
will stab. 

Host. Alas the day ! take heed of him ; he stabb'd me in 
mine own house, and that most beastly : in good faith, 'a 
cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out : he 
will foin^ like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, 
nor child. 

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. 

Host. No, nor I neither : I'll be at your elbow. 

Fang. An I but fist him once ; an 'a come but within my 
vice,^ — 

1 Exion is a Quicklyism for action, that is prosecution. 

2 A bailiff's follower was formerly called a sergeant's yeoman. 

3 Foin is an old word for thrust. The Poet has it repeatedly. 

4 Vice is used for grasp or clutch. The fist is vulgarly called the vice in 
the West of England. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 8 1 

Host I am undone by his going ; I warrant you, he's an 
infinitive thing upon my score. — Good Master Fang, hold 
him sure; — good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. 'A 
comes continually to Pie-corner — saving your manhoods — 
to buy a saddle ; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's- 
head^ in Lumbert-street, to Master Smooth's the silkman : I 
pray ye, since my exion is enter'd, and my case so openly 
known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A 
hundred mark is a long score for a poor lone woman to 
bear : and I have borne, and borne, and borne ; and have 
been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this 
day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There 
is no honesty in such dealing ; unless a woman should be 
made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yon- 
der he comes ; and that arrant malmsey-nose ^ knave Bar- 
dolph with him. Do your offices, do your ofiices. Master 
Fang and Master Snare ; do me, do me, do me your offices. 

Enter Falstaff, the Page, and Bardolph. 

FaL How now ! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? 

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress 
Quickly. 

FaL Away, varlets ! — Draw, Bardolph : cut me off the 
villain's head ; throw the quean in the channel.^ 

Host. Throw me in the channel ! I'll throw thee in the 

5 Lubber is Mrs. Quickly's version of libbard, which is the old form of 
leopard. The pictured heads of various animals were used as signs ; as the 
libbard's by Master Smooth, and the boar's by Mrs. Quickly. 

6 The epithet malmsey-nose is probably given to Bardolph because his 
nose had the colour of malmsey wine. 

■^ Channel here means kennel, that is, ditch or gutter. So in j> King 
Henry VI., ii. 2 : "As if a channel should be call'd the sea." Also in Lu- 
crece : " Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies." 



S2 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IL 

channel. Wilt thou ? wilt thou ? thou bastardly rogue ! — 
Murder, murder ! — O thou honey-suckle villain ! wilt thou 
kill God's officers and the King's ? O thou honey-seed rogue ! 
thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.^ 

I^al. Keep them off, Bardolph. 

I^ang. A rescue ! a rescue ! 

Hosf. Good people, bring a rescue or two. — Thou woo't, 
woo't thou? thou woo't, woo't thou?^ do, do, thou rogue ! 
do, thou hemp-seed ! 

Fa/. Away, you scullion ! you rampallian ! you fustilarian ! 
I'll tickle your catastrophe. 

Enter the Chief-Justice, attended. 

Ch.Just. What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho ! 

Host. Good my lord, be good to me ! I beseech you, 
stand to me ! 

Ch. Just. How now. Sir John ! what, are you brawling 
here? 
Doth this become your place, your time, and business? 
You should have been well on your way to York. — 
Stand from him, fellow : wherefore hang'st upon him ? 

Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, 
I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my 
suit. 

Ch. Just. For what sura ? 

Host. It is more than for some, my lord ; it is for all, — all 
I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home ; he hath 

8 To quell meant to kill; so that man-queller is manslayer or murderer. 
— Honey-suckle and honey-seed are Quicklyisms for homicidal and homicide ; 
as indited and bastardly are for invited and dastardly. 

9 Woo't is an old colloquialism for wilt. So in Hamlet, v. I : " Woo't 
weep? w^<?V fight? woo't fast?" &c. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 83 

put all my substance into that fat belly of his : — but I will 
have some of it out again, or I will ride thee o' nights like 
the mare. 

Fal. I think I am as like to ride the mare/^ if I have any 
vantage of ground to get up. 

Ch. Just. How comes this, Sir John? Fie ! what man 
of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation ? 
Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough 
a course to come by her own ? 

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee ? 

Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the 
money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt ^^ 
goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by 
a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson-week, when the 
Prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man 
of Windsor, — thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing 
thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. 
Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's 
wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in 
to borrow a mess of vinegar ; telling us she had a good dish 
of prawns ; whereby thou didst desire to eat some ; whereby 
I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou 
not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more 
so familiarity with such poor people ; saying that ere long 
they should call me madam ? And didst thou not kiss me, 



10 The gallows was jocosely called the two-legged, and sometimes the 
three-legged, mare. The hostess means the nightmare ; but punning and 
Falstaff are inseparable. 

11 Parcel-gilt is partly gilt, or gilt only in parts. Laneham, in his Letter 
from Kenilworth, describing a bride-cup, says, " It was formed of a sweet 
sucket barrel, a faire turn'd foot set to it, all seemly be-sylvered and parcel- 

giitr 



84 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II 

and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings ? I put thee now to thy 
book-oath : 1^ deny it, if thou canst. 

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul ; and she says, up 
and down the town, that her eldest son is like you : she hath 
been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted 
her. But, for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have 
redress against them. 

Ch.Just. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with 
your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It 
is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come 
with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust 
me from a level consideration : you have, as it appears to me, 
practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and 
made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. 

Host. Yea, in truth, my lord. 

Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace. — Pay her the debt you owe 
her, and unpay the villainy you have done her : the one you 
may do with sterling money, and the other with current re- 
pentance. 

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap i^ without reply. 
You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness : if a man 
will make curtsy, ^^ and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my 
lord, my humble duty remember'd, I will not be your suitor. 
I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, 
being upon hasty employment in the King's affairs. 

Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong : but 

12 Book-oath probably refers to the custom of swearing upon the Bible, 01 
" kissing the book." 

13 Sneap is reproof, rebuke. Snip, snib, sneb, and snub are different forms 
of the same word. To sneap was originally to check or pinch by frost. 
Shakespeare has sneaping frost and sneaping winds in other places. 

1* Making curtsy is the same as making a leg ; a form of obeisance much 
used in former times. See the First Part, page 114, note 47. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 85 

answer in the effect of your reputation,!^ and satisfy the poor 
woman. 

Fal. Come hither, hostess. \Takes her aside. 

Enter Gower. 

Ch.Just. Now, Master Gower, what news? 

Gow. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales 
Are near at hand : the rest the paper tells. [ Gives a letter. 

Fal. As I am a gentleman, — 

Host. Faith, you said so before. 

Fal. As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. 

Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain 
to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-cham- 
bers. 

Fal. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking : and, for thy 
walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, 
or the German Hunting in water-work,i^ is worth a thousand 
of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it 
be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy 
humours, there's not a better wench in England. Go, wash 
thy face, and draw ^'^ thy action. Come, thou must not be 
in this humour with me : dost not know me ? come, come, I 
know thou wast set on to this. 

Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles : 
i'faith, I am loth to pawn my plate, so God save me, la. 

15 That is, in a manner suitable to your name and character. 

16 Water-work is water-colour paintings or hangings. The painted cloth 
was generally oil-colour ; but a cheaper sort, probably resembling in their 
execution some modern paper-hangings, was brought from Holland or Ger- 
many, executed in water-colour. The German hunting, or wild-boar hunt, 
would consequently be a prevalent subject, — Drollery in Shakespeare's 
time meant a kind of puppet-show. 

1'^ Draw has here the force of withdraw ; referring to the prosecution she 
had entered against him. 



86 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

Fal. Let it alone ; I'll make other shift : you'll be a fool 
still. 

Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. 
I hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together? 

FaL Will I live?— \To Bardolph.] Go, with her, with 
her ; hook on, hook on. 

Host. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? 

Fal. No more words ; let's have her. 

[^jC(?2^;^/ Hostess, Bardolph, Officers, and Boy. 

Ch. Just. I have heard better news. 

Fal. What's the news, my lord ? 

Ch. Just. Where lay the King last night? 

Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord. 

Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well : what is the news, my 
lord? 

Ch.Just. Come all his forces back? 

Gow. No ; fifteen hundred Foot, five hundred Horse, 
Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster, 
Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. 

Fal. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord ? 

Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently : 
Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. 

Fal. My lord! 

Ch.Just. What's the matter? 

Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner ? 

Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here : I thank you, 
good Sir John. 

Ch.Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you 
are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. 

Fal. Will you sup with me, Master Gower? 

Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners^ 
Sir John ? 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 8/ 

Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool 
that taught them me. — This is the right fencing grace, my 
lord ; tap for tap,^^ and so part fair. 

Ch.Just, Now, the Lord lighten thee ! thou art a great 
Fool.^^ \_Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. Another Street. 
Enter Prince Henry and Pointz. 

Prince. Before God, I am exceeding weary. 

Pointz. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst 
not have attach'd ^ one of so high blood. 

Prince. Faith, it does me ; though it discolours the com- 
plexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show 
vilely in me to desire small beer? 

Pointz. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as 
to remember so weak a composition. 

Prince. Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got; 
for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small 
beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me 
out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me 
to remember thy name ! or to know thy face to-morrow ! or 
to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast, viz. 



18 Tap for tap is equivalent to our phrase tit for tat. Falstafif has just 
been retorting upon the Judge in the Judge's own kind ; not heeding his 
questions, but going right on with his talk, as if no questions had been asked. 
In saying " he was a fool that taught them me," Sir John refers to the usage 
he has turned upon the Chief Justice. 

19 His lordship uses fool here in the sense of the " allowed Fool," who 
was permitted to take all sorts of liberties with his superiors, and no one 
but a dunce thought of taking any offence at his jests. 

1 To lay-hold of to seize, to attack, are among the old meanings of to at 
tach. Shakespeare has it repeatedly for to arrest. 



88 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

these, and those that were thy peach-colour'd ones ! or to 
bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and 
one other for use ! — but that the tennis-court-keeper knows 
better than I ; for it is a low ebb of hnen with thee when thou 
keep'st not racket^ there; as thou hast not done a great 
while, because the rest of thy low-countries have made a shift 
to eat up thy holland : and God knows whether those that 
bawl out of the ruins of thy linen ^ shall inherit His kingdom : 
but the nurses say the children are not in the fault ; where- 
upon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strength- 
ened. 

Pointz. How ill it follows, after you have labour'd so hard, 
you should talk so idly ! Tell me, how many good young 
princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at 
this time is ? 

Prince. Shall I tell thee one thing, Pointz ? 

Pointz. Yes, faith ; and let it be an excellent-good thing. 

Prince. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding 
than thine. 

Pointz. Go to ; I stand the push of your one thing that 
you will tell. 

Prince. Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be 
sad, now my father is sick : albeit I could tell to thee, — as 
to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, 
— I could be sad, and sad indeed too. 

2 Racket was the name of an instrument used in playing the game of 
tennis. It was a piece of wood, with a handle at one end, and the other end 
bent into a sort of hoop, with some elastic material stretched over it. 
Probably a quibble was intended between this and the ordinary sense of 
the word. 

3 The Prince is referring to Pointz's children, actual or presumptive, who 
are supposed to have use for all the old shirts he can spare. The joke turns 
partly on the circumstance of Pointz being unmarried. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 89 

Pointz. Very hardly upon such a subject. 

Prince. By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the 
Devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persist- 
ency : let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart 
bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick : and keeping such 
vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all 
ostentation 4 of sorrow. 

Pointz. The reason? 

Prince. What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep ? 

Pointz. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. 

Prince. It would be every man's thought ; and thou art 
a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks : never a man's 
thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine : 
every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what 
accites your most worshipful thought to think so ? 

Pointz. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so 
much engraffed to Falstaff. 

Prince. And to thee. 

Pointz. By this light, I am well spoke on ; I can hear it 
with mine own ears : the worst that they can say of me is, 
that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow 
of my hands ; ^ and those two things, I confess, I cannot 
help. By the Mass, here comes Bardolph. 

Prince. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: 'a had him 
from me Christian ; and look, if the fat villain have not 
transform' d him ape. 

Enter Bardolph and the Page. 

4 Ostentation here means, simply, outward show, or expression. 

5 " A proper fellow of my hands " is a man of valour and execution. " A 
tall man," and " a tall man of his hands," were used in the same sense. The 
same phrase was also sometimes used for a thief. 



90 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

Bard. God save your Grace ! 

Prince. And yours, most noble Bardolph ! 

Bard. \_To the Page.] Come, you virtuous ass, you bash- 
ful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? 
What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become ! 

Page. He call'd me even now, my lord, through a red 
lattice,^ and I could discern no part of his face from the 
window : at last I spied his eyes ; and methought he had 
made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and so peeped 
through. 

Prince. Hath not the boy profited ? 

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away ! 

Page. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away ! 

Prince. Instruct us, boy ; what dream, boy ? 

Page. Marry, my lord, Althaea dream' d she was mother 
of a firebrand ; '^ and therefore I call him her dream. 

Prince. A crown's worth of good interpretation : — there 
'tis, boy. \_Gives money. 

Pointz. O, that this good blossom could be kept from 
cankers ! — Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. 

\_Gives money. 

Bard. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, 
the gallows shall have wrong. 

Prince. And how doth thy master, Bardolph? 

Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming 
to town : there's a letter for you. \_Gives a letter. 



6 Red lattice was a common term for an ale-house window. The fashion 
of red lattices in such houses is often alluded to by the old writers. 

"^ The Poet stumbles here in his mythology, confounding Althea's fire- 
brand with Hecuba's. Hecuba, before the birth of Paris, dreamed that she 
was the mother of a fire-brand that consumed Troy. Althea's fire-brand 
was a reality, not a dream. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 9I 

Poiniz. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the 
Martlemas,^ your master ? 

Bard. In bodily health, sir. 

Pointz. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician ; but 
that moves not him : though that be sick, it dies not. 

Prince. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as 
my dog : and he holds his place ; for look you how he writes. 

[ Gives the letter to Pointz. 

Pointz. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight, ■ — Every man must 
know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself : even 
like those that are kin to the King ; for they never prick their 
finger but they say. There'' s some of the King's blood spilt. 
How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to con- 
ceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's cap, / am 
the King's poor cousin, sir. 

Prince. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it 
from Japhet. But to the letter. 

Pointz. [Reads.] Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of 
the King, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greet- 
ing. — Why, this is a certificate. 

Prince. Peace ! 

Pointz. [Reads.] / will imitate the honourable Roman 
in brevity:^ — Sure he means brevity in breath, short- 
winded. — / commend J7ie to thee, I commend thee, and 1 
leave thee. Be not too familiar with Pointz ; for he misuses 
thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to marry his 

8 Falstaff is before called latter Spring, all-hallown Summer, and Pointz 
now calls him Martlemas, a corruption oi Martinmas, which means the same 
thing, the feast of St. Martin being considered the latter end of Autumn. It 
means therefore an old fellow with juvenile passions. 

9 Alluding to the celebrated bulletin, veni, vidi, vici, with which Julius 
Caesar is said to have announced his victory at Zela. 



92 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayst; and so, 
farewell. 

Thine, by yea and no, {which is as much as to say, as 
thou usest him,) Jack Falstaff with my familiars, 
John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John 
with all Europe. 

My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it. 

Prince. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. 
But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister? 

Pointz. God send the wench no worse fortune ! but I 
never said so. 

Prince. Well, thus we play the Fools with the time ; and 
the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. — Is 
your master here in London ? 

Bard. Yes, my lord. 

Prince. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the 
old frank? 10 

Bard. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap. 

Prince. What company? 

Page. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. ^^ 

Prince. Sup any women with him ? 

Page. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mis- 
tress Doll Tearsheet. 

Prince. What pagan may that be ? 

Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my 
master's. 

10 A place to fatten a boar in. So in Holland's Pliny : " Swine will be 
well fat and well larded in sixtie dales ; and the rather, if before you begin 
\o franke them up, they be kept altogether from meat three dales." 

11" A slang phrase probably meaning topers, or Jolly companions of the old 
sort. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 93 

Prince. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper? 

Pointz. I am your shadow, my lord ; I'll follow you. 

Prince. Sirrah, you boy, — and Bardolph, — no word to 
your master that I am yet come to town : there's for your 
silence. \_Gives money. 

Bard. I have no tongue, sir. 

Page. And, for mine, sir, I will govern it. 

Pri?ice. Fare ye well ; go. \_Pxeunt Bardolph and Page. 
. — How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in 
his true colours,!^ and not ourselves be seen? 

Pointz. Put on two leather jerkins and aprons, and wait 
upon him at his table as drawers. 

Prince. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension ! it 
was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low trans- 
formation ! that shall be mine ; for in every thing the pur- 
pose must weigh with the folly.^^ Follow me, Ned. 

\_Exeunt. 



Scene III. — Warkworth. Before the Castle. 

Enter Northumberland, Lady Northumberland, and 
Lady Percy. 

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter, 
Give even way unto my rough affairs : 
Put not you on the visage of the times. 
And be, like them, to Percy troublesome. 

Lady N. I have given over, I will speak no more : 



12 "Bestow himself in his true colours " is i>ear, behave, or show himself in 
his proper character. See As You Like It, page Ii8, note 4. 

13 That is, must be according to the folly. A grave and serious purpose 
would not sort well with a course of frolicsome levity ; and vice versa. 



94 THE SECOND PART OF ACT TI. 

Do what you will ; your wisdom be your guide. 

North. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn ; 
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it. 

Lady P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars ! 
The time was, father, that you broke your word, 
When you were more endear'd to it than now ; 
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry, 
Threw many a northward look to see his father 
Bring up his powers ; but he did long in vain. 
Who then persuaded you to stay at home ? 
There were two honours lost, yours and your son's. 
For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it ! 
For his, it stuck upon him, as the Sun 
In the gray vault of heaven ; and by his light 
Did all the chivalry of England move 
To do brave acts : he was indeed the glass 
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves : 
He had no legs that practised not his gait ; 
And speaking thick, ^ which Nature made his blemish, 
Became the accents of the valiant; 
For those that could speak low and tardily 
Would turn their own perfection to abuse. 
To seem like him : so that in speech, in gait, 
In diet, in affections of delight, 
In military rules, humours of blood. 
He was the mark and glass, copy and book. 
That fashion'd others.^ And him, — O wondrous him ! 

1 " Speaking thick " is speaking rapidly, running the words together. So 
in Cymbeline, iii. 2: " Say, and speak thick ; love's counsellor should fill the 
bores of hearing." 

2 This language seems to have been in special favour with the Poet. So 
in Hamlet, iii. I : " The glass of fashion and the mould of form." And in 
Lucrece : 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 95 

O miracle of men ! — him did you leave 
(Second to none, unseconded by you) 
To look upon the hideous god of war 
In disadvantage ; to abide a field 
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name 
Did seem defensible : ^ so you left him. 
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong 
To hold your honour more precise and nice 
With others than with him ! let them alone : 
The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong : 
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers. 
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck. 
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave. 

North. Beshrew your heart, 

Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me 
With new lamenting ancient ^ oversights. 
But I must go, and meet with danger there ; 
Or it will seek me in another place, 
And find me worse provided. 

Lady N. O, fly to Scotland, 

Till that the nobles and the armed commons 
Have of their puissance made a little taste. 

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the King, 
Then join you with them, like a rib of steel. 
To make strength stronger ; but, for all our loves. 



For princes are the glass, the school, the hook. 
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look. 

3 Defensible for defensive ; the passive form with the active sense. So, in 
a Proclamation of the Protector Somerset, quoted by Walker, the King's 
subjects are called upon to repair to Hampton Court " in most defensible 
array, with harness and weapons to defend his most royal person." 

* Ancient, here, is past or by-gone, simply. 



96 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II 

First let them try themselves. So did your son ; 
He was so suffer'd : so came I a widow ; 
And never shall have length of life enough 
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes/ 
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven, 
For recordation to my noble husband. 

North. Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind 
As with the tide swell'd up unto his height, 
That makes a still-stand, running neither way : 
Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop, 
But many thousand reasons hold me back. 
I will resolve for Scotland : there am I, 
Till time and vantage crave my company. \Exeunt 



Scene IV. — London. A Room in the Boar's-Head Tavern 
in Eastcheap. 

Enter two Drawers. 

1 Draw. What the Devil hast thou brought there ? ap- 
ple-johns? thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple- 
john.i 

2 Draw. Mass, thou say'st true. The Prince once set 
a dish of apple-johns before him, and told him there were 
five more Sir Johns ; and, putting, off his hat, said, / will now 
take my leave of these six d?j, 7'ound, old, wither'' d knights. 
It anger'd him to the heart : ^ but he hath forgot that. 

5 Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called because it was the symbol of 
remembrance, and therefore used at weddings and funerals. 

1 This apple, which was said to keep two years, is well described by 
Phillips in a passage quoted in the First Part, page 140, note i. Falstaff 
has already said of himself, " I am withered like an old apple-john." 

2 Anger was sometimes used for simple grief or distress, without imply 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 97 

1 Draw. Why, then cover, and set them down : and see 
if thou canst find out Sneak's noise ; ^ Mistress ^Tearsheet 
would fain hear some music. Dispatch : the room where 
they supp'd is too hot ; they'll come in straight. 

2 Draw. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Pointz 
anon ; and they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons ; 
and Sir John must not know of it : Bardolph hath brought 
word. 

1 Draw. By the Mass, here will be old utis : ^ it will b( 
an excellent stratagem. 

2 Draw. I'll see if I can find out Sneak. \_Exif. 

Enter the Hostess and Doll Tearsheet. 

Host. I'faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an 
excellent-good temperality : your pulsidge beats as extraor- 
dinarily as heart would desire ; and your colour, I wan-ant 
you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la : but, i'faith, you 
have drunk too much canaries ; and that's a marvellous 
searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 
Whafs this ? How do you now? 

Dol. Better than I was : hem. 

ing any desire to punish. Thus in St. Mark iii. 5, speaking of our Saviour : 
" And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved 
for the hardness of their heart." 

3 A noise, or a consort, was used for a set or company of musicians. Sneak 
was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen for his 
band. 

■* Old was often used as an augmentative, something as huge is used now. 
— Utis, sometimes spelt utas, and derived by Skinner from the French huit, 
properly meant the octave of a saint's day, and hence was appHed generally 
to sport-making and festivity. So in A Contention between Liberality and 
Prodigality, 1602 : " With some roysting harmony let us begin the utas of 
our jollitie." The word, it is said, is still used in Warwickshire for what is 
called a row. So that old utis is a grand frolic. 



98 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

Host. Why, that's well said ; a good heart's worth gold. 
Lo, here comes Sir John. 

Enter Falstaff. 

Fal. [Singing.] VlHien Arthur first in Court — \_Exit i 
Drawer.] And was a worthy king.^ — How now, Mistress 
Doll! 

Host. Sick of a calm j ^ yea, good faith. 

Fal. So is all her sect ; '^ an they be once in a calm, they 
are sick. 

Dol. You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give 
me? 

Fal. You make fat rascals,^ Mistress Doll. 

Dol. I make them ! gluttony and diseases make them ; I 
make them not. — Hang yourself, you muddy conger,^ hang 
yourself ! 

Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion ; you two never 
meet but you fall to some discord : you are both, in good 



5 The ballad from which this is taken is entitled Sir Launcelot du Lake, 

and is printed entire in Percy's Reliques. The first stanza as there given 

runs thus : 

When Arthur first in court began, 

And was approved king, 
By force of armes great victorys wonne, 

And conquest home did bring. 

6 Calm is a Quicklyism for qualm. Falstaff seizes the occasion to perpe- 
trate a pun. 

7 Sect and sex were often used indiscriminately. 

8 The allusion here is rather uncertain. Walker says, " There is a species 
of tea-cake in Yorkshire, called — appropriately — a fat rascal." On the 
other hand, Puttenham says, "Rascall is properly a hunting term given to 
young deer leane and out of season." 

^ Probably an ironical allusion to Falstaff's bulkiness, conger being an- 
other name for the sea-eel, which of course loves and haunts muddy waters. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 99 

truth, as rheumatic ^^ as two dry toasts ; you cannot one bear 
with another's confirmities. What the good-year ! ii one must 
bear, — [71? Doll.] and that must be you: you are the 
weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel. 

Dol. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogs- 
head? there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeax stuff 
in him ; you have not seen a hulk better stufPd in the hold. 
— Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack : thou art going to 
the wars ; and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, 
there is nobody cares.^^ 

Re-enter the First Drawer. 

I Draw. Sir, Ancient ^^ Pistol's below, and would speak 
with you. 

DoL Hang him, swaggering rascal ! let him not come 
hither : it is the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England. 

Host. If he swagger, let him not come here : no, by my 
faith j I must live among my neighbours ; I'll no swagger- 
ers : I am in good name and fame with the very best. — 
Shut the door ; — there comes no swaggerers here : I have 

10 Mrs. Quickly means splenetic. It should be remarked, however, that 
rheum seems to have been a cant w^ord for spleen. 

II The origin and meaning of this term have not been satisfactorily ex- 
plained. The most likely account makes it a corruption of gougere, which 
was used of a certain French disease. It was sometimes spelt good-jer. It 
came to be used as an unmeaning expletive. 

12 It has been aptly suggested that Mistress Doll, as if inspired by the 
present visitation, grows poetical here, and improvises a little in the lyric 
vein. The close of her speech, if set to the eye as it sounds to the ear, would 
stand something thus : 

Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack : 

Thou art going to the wars ; 
And whether I shall ever see thee again, 
Or no, there is nobody cares. 
18 Ancient is an old corruption of ensign. See First Part, page 157, note 8 



lOO THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

not lived all this while, to have swaggering now : — shut the 
door, I pray you. 

Fal. Dost thou hear, hostess? — 

Host. Pray you, pacify yourself. Sir John : there comes 
no swaggerers here. 

Fal. Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient. 

Host. Tilly-fally,i4 Sir John, ne'er tell me : your ancient 
swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master 
Tisick, the deputy, t'other day ; and, as he said to me, — 
'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, — Neighbour 
Quickly, says he; — Master Dumb,^^ our minister, was by 
then ; — Neighbour Quickly, says he, receive those that are 
civil ; for, saith he, you are in an ill name : — now 'a said 
so, I can tell whereupon ; for, says he, yotc aj-e an honest 
woman, and well thought on ; therefore take heed what guests 
you receive ; receive, says he, no swaggering compa?iions. 
There comes none here : you would bless you to hear what 
he said : no, I'll no swaggerers. 

Fal. He's no swaggerer, hostess ; a tame cheater, i'faith ; 
you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound : he'll 
not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in 
any show of resistance. — Call him up, drawer. 

\_Exit first Drawer. 

Host. Cheater, call you him ? I will bar no honest man 
my house, nor no cheater : i^ but I do not love swaggering ; 



14 An old exclamation equivalent to owx fiddle-faddle. 

15 The names of Master Tisick and Master Z)2^wz<5 are intended to denote 
that the deputy was pursy and short-winded ; the minister one of those who 
preached only the homilies set forth by authority. The Puritans nicknamed 
them Dumb-dogs. 

16 The humour consists in Mrs. Quickly's mistaking a cheater for an 
escheator, or officer of the Exchequer. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. lOI 

by my troth, I am the worse when one says swagger : — feel, 
mistress, how I shake \ look you, I warrant you. 

DoL So you do. Hostess. 

Host. Do I ? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen- 
leaf : I cannot abide swaggerers. 

Enter Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page. 

Pist. God save you. Sir John ! 

Fal. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you 
with a cup of sack : do you discharge upon mine hostess. 

Pist. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets. 

Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir ; you shall hardly offend her. 

Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets : I'll drink 
no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I. 

Pist. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy ; I will charge you. 

Dot. Charge me ! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What ! 
you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate ! Away, 
you mouldy rogue, away ! 

Pist. I know you. Mistress Dorothy. 

Dol. Away, you cut-purse rascal ! you filthy bung,!''' ^way ! 
by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chops, an 
you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale 
rascal ! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you ! Since when, I 
pray you, sir ? God's light, with two points on your shoul- 
der? much !i^ 

Pist. God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for 
this. 

17 To nip a bung, in the cant of thievery, was to cut a purse. Doll means 
to call him pickpocket. Cuttle and cuttle-bung v^&xq also cant terms for the 
knife used by cutpurses. These terms are therefore used by metonymy for 
a thief. 

18 These two points were laces, marks of his commission. — Much / was a 
common ironical exclamation of contempt and denial. 



102 THE SECOND PART OF ACT 11, 

FaL No more, Pistol ; I would not have you go off here : 
discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. 

Host. No, good Captain Pistol ; not here, sweet captain. 

DoL Captain ! thou abominable damn'd cheater, art thou 
not ashamed to be call'd captain? An captains were of my 
mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names 
upon you before you have earn'd them. — He a captain ! 
hang him, rogue ! he lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and 
dried cakes. A captain ! God's light ! these villains will 
make the word as odious as the word occupy ; ^^ which was 
an excellent-good word before it was ill sorted : therefore 
captains had need look to't. 

Bard. Pray thee, go down, good ancient. 

Fal. Hark thee hither. Mistress Doll. 

Pist. Not I : I tell thee what. Corporal Bardolph, I 
could tear her : I'll be revenged of her. 

Page. Pray thee, go down. 

Pist. I'll see her damn'd first ; to Pluto's damned lake, 
by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures 
vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs ! 
down, faitors ! Have we not Hiren here? ^o 



19 This word had been perverted to a bad meaning. Ben Jonson, in his 
Discoveries, says, " Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse 
proper and fit words, as occupy, nature." 

20 Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Pistol a tissue of absurd and 
fustian passages from many ridiculous old plays. Have we not Hiren here, 
is probably a line from a play of George Peele's, called The Turkish Ma- 
homet and Hiren the Fair Greek. Hiren, from its resemblance to siren, was 
used for a seducing woman. Pistol, in his rants, twice brings in the same 
words, but apparently meaning to give his sword the name of Hiren. Mrs. 
Quickly, with admirable simplicity, supposes him to ask for a woman. — 
Faitors is an old word meaning vagabonds, or idle rascals. Used as a gen' 
eral term of reproach. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO3 

Host. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet ; 'tis very late, i'faith : 
I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. 

Pist. These be good humours, indeed ! Shall packhorses, 
And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, 
Which cannot go but thirty miles a-day,^i 
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,^^ 
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with 
King Cerberus ; and let the welkin roar. 
Shall we fall foul for toys ? 

Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. 

Bard. Be gone, good ancient : this will grow to a brawl 
anon. 

Pist. Die men like dogs ! give . crowns like pins ! Have 
we not Hiren here ? 

Host. O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What 
the good-year ! do you think I would deny her ? For God's 
sake, be quiet. 

Pist. Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.^^ — 
Come, give's some sack. 

Seforfuna mi tormenta, to sperare mi contenta.^^ — 
Fear we broadsides ? no, let the fiend give fire : 
Give me some sack : — and, sweetheart, lie thou there. — 

\_Laying down his sword. 

21 This is a parody of the lines addressed by Tamburlaine to the captive 
princes who draw his chariot, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590. 

22 A Pistolian blunder for Hannibals. 

23 In The Battle of Alcazar, a play which Dyce assigns to Peele, we 
meet with the line, " Feed, then, and faint not, my fair Calipolis." And 
again : "Feed and be fat, that we may meet the foe." Pistol is supposed to 
have haunted the pit, and there got charged with these bits of theatrical 
ammunition. 

24 This, no doubt, is Pistol's reading or repeating of the motto on his 
sword ; the same which he has already called Hiren, and which he calls 
sweetheart a little after. A Toledo blade, and so with its motto in Spanish. 



I04 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II, 

Come we to full-points here, and are et-ceteras nothing P^^ 

Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet. 

Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif : ^^ what ! we have seen 
the seven stars. 

Dol. For God's sake, thrust him down stairs : I cannot 
endure such a fustian rascal. 

Pist. Thrust me down stairs ! know we not Galloway 
nags?^''' 

Fal. Quoit him down,28 Bardolph, like a shove-groat shil- 
ling : nay, an 'a do nothing but speak nothing, 'a shall be 
nothing here. 

Bard. Come, get you down stairs. 

Pist. What ! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue? — 

\Snatching up his sword. 
Then death rock me asleep,^^ abridge my doleful days ! 
Why, then let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds 
Untwine the Sisters Three ! Come, Atropos, I say ! 

Host. Here's goodly stuff toward ! 

Fal. Give me my rapier, boy. 

Dol. I pray thee. Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. 

Fal. Get you down stairs. 

\_D rawing, and driving Pistol out. 

25 That is, shall we stop here, and have no more sport ? 

26 Neif is used by Shakespeare ioxfist. It is a north country word, to be 
found in Ray's Collection. 

27 Common hackneys. 

„♦ 28 That is, pitch him down. The shove-groat shillings were broad shil- 
lings of King Edward VI. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. i, they are 
spoken of as Edward shovel-boards. 

29 Pistol scatters out fragments of old ballads as well as of old plays. 
" O death, rock me on slepe, bring me on quiet rest," is from an ancient 
song attributed to Anne Boleyn. There is another in the Got-gious Gallery 
of Gallant Inventions, 1578, which has furnished him with some of his rho' 
domontade. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO5 

Host. Here's a goodly tumult ! I'll forswear keeping 
house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So ; murder, 
I warrant now. — Alas, alas ! put up your naked weapons, 
put up your naked weapons. \_Exeiint Pistol and Bardolph. 

Dot. I pray thee. Jack, be quiet ; the rascal's gone. Ah, 
you whoreson little valiant villain, you ! 

Host. Are you hurt i' the groin? methought 'a made a 
shrewd thrust at you. 

Re-enter Bardolph. 

Fal. Have you turn'd him out o' doors? 

Bard. Yes, sir. The rascal's drunk ; you have hurt him, 
sir, i' the shoulder. 

Fal. A rascal ! to brave me ! 

Dol. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you ! Alas, poor ape, 
how thou sweat'st ! come, let me wipe thy face ; come on, 
you whoreson chops : ah, rogue ! i'faith, I love thee : thou 
art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, 
and ten times better than the Nine Worthies : ah, villain ! 

Fal. A rascally slave ! I will toss the rogue in a blanket. 

Dol. Do, an thou darest for thy heart. 

Enter Musicians. 

Page. The music is come, sir. 

Fal. Let them play : — play, sirs. — \_Music.'\ A rascal 
bragging slave ! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver. 

Dol. I'faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou 
whoreson little Bartholomew-tide boar-pig,^^ when wilt thou 

30 Doll says this in coaxing ridicule of Falstaff 's enormous bulk. Roasted 
pigs were formerly among the chief attractions of Bartholomew fair ; they 
were sold, piping hot, in booths and on stalls, and were ostentatiously dis- 
played to excite the appetite of passengers. It was a common subject of 
allusion. 



I06 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II, 

leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to 
patch up thine old body for Heaven ? 

Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Pointz disguised as 
Drawers. 

Fal. Peace, good Doll ! do not speak like a death's-head ; 
do not bid me remember mine end. 

DoL Sirrah, what humour's the Prince of? ■ 

Fal. A good shallow young fellow : 'a would have made 
a good pantler, 'a would ha' chipp'd bread well. 

DoL They say Pointz has a good wit. 

Fal. He a good wit? hang him, baboon ! his wit's as 
thick as Tewksbury mustard ; there's no more conceit in him 
than is in a mallet. 

Dol. Why does the Prince love him so, then? 

Fal. Because their legs are both of a bigness ; and 'a 
plays at quoits well ; and eats conger and fennel ; ^^ and 
drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons ; ^^ and rides the 
wild-mare with the boys ; and jumps upon joint-stools ; and 
swears with a good grace ; and wears his boot very smooth, 
like unto the sign of the leg ; and breeds no bate with tell- 
ing of discreet stories ; ^^ and such other gambol faculties 'a 

31 Steevens says that " conger with fetinel was formerly regarded as a 
provocative " ; and Nares says, ''Fennel was generally considered as an in- 
flammatory herb ; and therefore, to eat conger and fennel, was to eat two 
high and hot things together, which was esteemed an act of libertinism." 

82 K flap-dragon was some small combustible body set on fire and put 
afloat in a glass of liquor. It was an act of dexterity in the toper to swallow 
it without burning his mouth. — Riding the wild-mare is another name for 
the childish sport of see-saw. 

33 The meaning is not very obvious. Mr. Joseph Crosby writes me an 
explanation that may well be thought sufficient : " Pointz ' breeds no bate,' 
because he keeps a discreet \oxvg\x& in his head : in his talk with the Prince he 
avoids getting into trouble by taking care that his stories be always discreet." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. lO^ 

has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which 
the Prince admits him : for the Prince himself is such 
another ; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between 
their avoirdupois. 

Prince. Would not this nave of a wheel ^^ have his ears 
cut off? 

Pointz. Let's beat him. 

Prince. Look, whether the wither'd elder hath not his 
poll claw'd like a parrot. 

Pointz. Is it not strange that desire should so many years 
outlive performance? 

Fal. Kiss me, Doll. 

Prince. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction ! ^^ what 
says the almanac to that ? 

Pointz. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be 
not lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book, his 
counsel-keeper.^^ 

Fal. Thou dost give me flattering busses. 

DoL By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart. 

Fal. I am old, I am old. 

Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young 
boy of them all. 

Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle^''' of? I shall receive 

3* Falstaff is humorously called nave of a wheel, from his rotundity of 
figure. The pun between nave and knave is obvious. Would for should. 

35 This was indeed a prodigy. The astrologers, says Ficinus, remark that 
Saturn and Venus are never conjoined. 

36 Trigon for triangle, a term in the old judicial astrology. They called 
it a fiery trigon when the three upper planets met in a fiery sign ; which 
was thought to denote rage and contention. Pointz refers to Bardolph, who 
is supposed to be whispering to the Hostess, Sir John's counsel-keeper, 

37 Few words have occasioned such controversy as kirtle. The most fa- 
miliar terms are often the most baffling to the antiquary; for, being in gen- 
eral use, they were clearly understood by our ancestors, and therefore are 



I08 THE SECOND PART OF ACT II. 

money o' Thursday : shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry 
song, come : it grows late. Thou 'It forget me when I am gone. 

DoL By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou 
say'st so : prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy 
return. Well, hearken the end. 

Fal. Some sack, Francis. 

Pviitcc ) 

\ Anon, anon, sir. \ Advancing, 

Pointz. ) 

Fal. Ha! a bastard son of the King's? — And art not 
thou Pointz his^^ brother? 

Prince. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life 
dost thou lead ! 

Fal. A better than thou : I am a gentleman ; thou art a 
drawer. 

Prince. Very true, sir ; and I come to draw you out by 
the ears. 

Host. O, the Lord preserve thy good Grace ! by my troth, 
welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face 
of thine ! O Jesu, are you come from Wales ? 

Fal. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this 
light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome. 

[^Leaning his hand upon Doll. 

Dol. How, you fat fool ! I scorn you. 

Pointz. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge, 
and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat. 

Prince. You whoreson candle-mine, ^^ you, how vilely did 

not accurately defined in the dictionaries. A klrtle, from the Saxon cyrtel, 
to gird, was undoubtedly a petticoat, which sometimes had a body without 
sleeves attached to it, 

38 Pointz his is the old form of the possessive, which was going out of use 
in the Poet's time. It would now be written Pointz s or Pointz' . 

39 Alluding to the fat, or candle-timber wrapped up in Sir John's estab- 
lishment. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO9 

you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil 
gentlewoman ! 

Host. God's blessing of your good heart ! and so she is, 
by my troth. 

Fal. Didst thou hear me ? 

Prince. Yes ; and you knew me, as you did when you ran 
away by Gads-hill : you knew I was at your back, and spoke 
it on purpose to try my patience. 

Fal. No, no, no ; not so ; I did not think thou wast 
within hearing. 

Prince. I shall drive you, then, to confess the wilful abuse ; 
and then I know how to handle you. 

Fal. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour ; no abuse. 

Prince. Not, — to dispraise me, and call me pantler, and 
bread-chipper, and I know not what ! 

Fal. No abuse, Hal. 

Pointz. No abuse ! 

Fal. No abuse, Ned, i' the world ; honest Ned, none. I 
dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not 
fall in love with him ; — in which doing, I have done the part 
of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to 
give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; — none, Ned, none ; 
— no, faith, boys, none. 

Prince. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice 
doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close 
with us?^*^ is she of the wicked? is thine hostess here of the 
wicked ? or is thy boy of the wicked ? or honest Bardolph, 
whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked ? 

Pointz. Answer, thou dead elm, answer. 

Fal. The fiend hath prick'd down Bardolph irrecoverable \ 

40 To " close with us," is to unite, to fall in, or to take part, with us. 



1 10 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IL 

and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing 
but roast malt-worms. For the boy, there is a good angel 
about him ; but the Devil outbids him too. 

Prince. For the women ? 

Fal. For one of them, she is in Hell already, and burns, 
poor soul ! For the other, I owe her money ; and whether 
she be damn'd for that, I know not. 

Host. No, I warrant you. 

Fal. No, I think thou art not ; I think thou art quit for 
that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee, for suf- 
fering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law ; ^^ 
for the which I think thou wilt howl. 

Host. All victuallers do so : what's a joint of mutton or 
two in a whole Lent ? 

Prince. You, gentlewoman, — 

Dol. What says your Grace ? 

Fal. His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.'*^ 

\_Knocking within. 

Host. Who knocks so loud at door? — Look to the door 
there, Francis. 

Enter Peto. 

Prince. Peto, how now ! what news ? 

Peto. The King your father is at Westminster ; 
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts 
Come from the North : and, as I came along, 
I met and overtook a dozen captains. 
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns, 

41 In the reign of Elizabeth, statutes were made for the observance of 
fish days, strictly forbidding victuallers to serve up flesh in Lent. 

42 A quibble is here intended, I think, between Grace as a title and gract 
in the theological sense ; alluding, probably, to St. Paul's antagonism be- 
tween the Spirit and the flesh. Galatians v. 17. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. Ill 

And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff. 

Prince. By Heaven, Pointz, I feel me much to blame. 
So idly to profane the precious time ; 
When tempest of commotion, like the south, 
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt, 
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads. 
Give me my sword and cloak. — Falstaff, good night. 

\_Exeunt Prince Henry, Pointz, Peto, and Bardolph. 

Fal. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and 

we must hence. \Knocking within.~\ More knocking at the 

door ! — 

Re-enter Bardolph. 

How now ! what's the matter? 

Bard. You must away to Court, sir, presently ; 
A dozen captains stay at door for you. 

Fal. \To the Page.] Pay the musicians, sirrah. — Fare- 
well, hostess ; — farewell, Doll. — You see, my good wenches, 
how men of merit are sought after : the undeserver may 
sleep, when the man of action is call'd on. Farewell, good 
wenches : if I be not sent away post, I will see you again 
ere I go. 

Dol. I cannot speak ; — if my heart be not ready to 
burst, — well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself. 

Fal. Farewell, farewell. [^jk:<?2^;2/ Falstaff ^;z^ Bardolph 

Host. Well, fare thee well : I have known thee these 
twenty-nine years, come peascod-time ; but an honester and 
truer-hearted man, — well, fare thee well. 

Bard. [ Within ^^ Mistress Tearsheet ! 

Host. What's the matter? 

Bard. [Within.'] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my 
master. 

Host. O, run, Doll, run ; run, good Doll ! \_Exeunt, 



112 THE SECOND PART OF 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Westminster. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter King Henry in his nightgown, with a Page. 

King. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick ; 
But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters, 
And well consider of them : make good speed. — \_ExitY2.g^ 
How many thousand of my poorest subjects 
Are at this hour asleep ! — O sleep, O gentle sleep. 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down. 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
Why rather, sleep, hest thou in smoky cribs. 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee. 
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under their canopies of costly state, 
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? 
O thou dull god, why hest thou with the vile 
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch 
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell ? ^ 
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude imperious surge, 
And in the visitation of the winds, 

1 The most probable meaning of this obscure passage is, that the kingly 
couch, when sleep has left it, is as the case or box which shelters the watch- 
man ; or as the common bell that is to sound the alarm and rouse the sleep- 
ing people at the coming of danger. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. II3 

Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 

With deafening clamour in the slippery shrouds. 

That, with the hurly,^ death itself awakes ? 

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ; 

And in the calmest and most stillest night, 

With all appliances and means to boot, 

Deny it to a king? Then, happy lowly clown ! 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 

Enter Warwick and Surrey. 

War. Many good morrows to your Majesty ! 

King. Is it good morrow, lords ? 

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past. 

King. Why, then good morrow to you all, my lords. 
Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you ? 

War. We have, rhy liege. 

King. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom 
How foul it is ; what rank diseases grow. 
And with what danger, near the heart of it. 

War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd ; 
Which to his former strength may be restored 
With good advice and little medicine : 
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd. 

King. O God ! that one might read the book of fate. 
And see the revolution of the times 
Make mountains level, and the continent, 

2 Hurly is noise, tumult, uproar ; the same as hurly-burly, which the 
Poet elsewhere uses. — Shrouds are the ropes extending from the mastheads 
to the sides of the ship. 



114 THE SECOND PART OF ACT HI. 

Weary of solid firmness, melt itself 

Into the sea ! and, other times, to see 

The beachy girdle of the ocean 

Too wide for Neptune's hips ; how chances mock. 

And changes fill the cup of alteration 

With divers liquors ! O, if this were seen. 

The happiest youth — viewing his progress through, 

What perils past, what crosses to ensue ^ — 

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. 

'Tis not ten years gone 

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends. 

Did feast together, and in two years after 

Were they at wars : it is but eight years since 

This Percy was the man nearest my soul ; 

Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs, 

And laid his love and life under my foot ; 

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard 

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,^ — 

[7i? Warwick.] You, cousin Neville, as I may remember, — 

When Richard — with his eye brimful of tears. 

Then check'd and rated by Northumberland — 

Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy ? 

3 The sense of this whole line is evidently future. " What perils being 
past, what crosses are to ensue " ; that is, what crosses will still await us, 
when we shall have passed through how great perils. 

■* The reference here is to v. i, of King Richard II., where Northumber- 
land visits Richard in the Tower, to order his removal to Pomfret. The 
Poet had probably forgotten that Bolingbroke had already mounted the 
throne, and that neither he nor Warwick was present at the interview re- 
ferred to. In the next line, also, there is some confusion. Ralph Neville 
was at that time earl of Westmoreland, and the name of the Earl of War^ 
mick was Beauchamp. The latter earldom did not come into the Neville 
family till many years after, when Anne, the heiress of that earldom was 
married to Richard Neville, son to the Earl of Salisbury. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. II5 

Northumberland, thou ladder by the which 

My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne ; — 

Though then, God knows, I had no such mtent, 

But that necessity so bow'd the State, 

That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss ; — 

The time will come, thus did he follow it. 

The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, 

Shall break into coi-ruption : — so went on, 

Foretelling this same time's condition. 

And the division of our amity. 

War. There is a history in all men's lives. 
Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; 
The which observed, a man may prophesy, 
With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds 
And weak beginnings lie intreasured. 
Such things become the hatch and brood of time ; 
And, by the necessary form of these. 
King Richard might create a perfect guess, 
That great Northumberland, then false to him. 
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness ; 
Which should not find a ground to root upon. 
Unless on you. 

J^ing. Are these things, then, necessities? 

Then let us meet them like necessities ; 
And that same word even now cries out on us.^ 
They say the bishop and Northumberland 

s To cry out 077, or to cry on, was a common phrase for to exclaim against. 
The meaning is, that the instant necessity upbraids our sloth and backward- 
ness. The Poet repeatedly uses cry on in the same sense. — The meaning 
of the line before is. " If these things are indeed necessities, then let us meet 
them with their like ; let us be as necessities to match them, and see which 
will prove the stronger." A very heroic saying ! 



Il6 THE SECOND PART OF ACT III. 

Are fifty thousand strong. 

War. It cannot be, my lord : 

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, 
The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your Grace 
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord. 
The powers that you already have sent forth 
Shall bring this prize in very easily. 
To comfort you the more, I have received 
A certain instance that Glendovver is dead.^ 
Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill ; 
And these unseason'd^ hours perforce must add 
Unto your sickness. 

King. I will take your counsel : 

And were these inward wars once out of hand. 
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. [^Exeunt. 



Scene II. — Court before Justice Shallow's House in Glos- 
tershire. 

Enter Shallow <2;^^ Silence, meeting; Mouldy, Shadow, 
Wart, Feeble, Bullcalf, and Servants, behind. 

Shal. Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your 
hand, sir, give me your hand, sir : an early stirrer, by the 
Rood.i And how doth my good cousin Silence? 

Sil. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. 

6 Glen dower did not die till after the death of King Henry the Fourth. 
Shakespeare was led into this error by Holinshed. — Instance here means 
information or assurance. The word is used in a great variety of senses 
by Shakespeare, and is sometimes rather hard to define. 

"^ Ufiseasofi'd for 2inseaso7table ; as admired ior admirable, unavoided for 
u?iavoidahle, wonder d for wonderful, and many others. 

^ The Rood is the cross or crucifix. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. II/ 

Shal. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow ? and your 
fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen ? 

Sil. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow ! 

Shal. By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William 
is become a good scholar : he is at Oxford still, is he not ? 

Sil. Indeed, sir, to my cost. 

Shal. 'A must, then, to the Inns-o'-Court shortly : ^ I was 
once of Clement's-Inn, where I think they will talk of mad 
Shallow yet. 

Sil. You were call'd lusty Shallow then, cousin. 

Shal. By the Mass, I was call'd any thing ; and I would 
have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too. There 
was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George 
Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsol' man ; ^ 
you had not four such swinge -bucklers in all the Inns-o'- 
Court again. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, 
and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.^ 

Sil. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about 
soldiers ? 

Shal. The same Sir John, the very same. I saw him 
break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when 'a was a crack ^ 



2 Inns-of-Court are colleges where the younger " limbs of the law " pur- 
sue their legal studies and have their lodgings. Of this sort are Gray's-Inn, 
Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple, and Middle Temple. 

3 The Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, were famous for rural sports 
of all kinds ; by distinguishing Will Squele as a Cotswold man. Shallow 
meant to have understood it that he was well versed in manly exercises, and 
consequently of a daring spirit and atheletic constitution. — Swinge-bucklers 
and swash-bucklers were terms implying rakes and rioters, in the time of 
Shakespeare. 

4 Halliwell has ascertained that Sir John Oldcastle, " the good Lord Cob- 
ham," was, in his youth, page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; and 
he justly argues that Oldcastle was the original name of Falstaff. 

5 A crack is a pert, forward boy. 



Il8 THE SECOND PART OF ACT III, 

not thus high : and the very same day did I fight with one 
Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-Inn. Jesu, 
Jesu, the mad days that I have spent ! and to see how many 
of my old acquaintance are dead ! 

Sil. We shall all follow, cousin. 

Shal. Certain, 'tis certain ; very sure, very sure : death, 
as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all ; all shall die. How a 
good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? 

Sil. Truly, cousin, I was not there. 

Shal. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town liv- 
ing yet ? 

Sil Dead, sir. 

Shal. Jesu, Jesu, dead ! — 'a drew a good bow ; and 
dead ! — 'a shot a fine shoot : John o' Gaunt loved him well, 
and betted much money on his head. Dead ! — 'a would 
have clapp'd i' the clout at twelve score ; ^ and carried you a 
forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it 
would have done a man's heart good to see. How a score 
of ewes now ? 

SiL Thereafter as they be : "^ a score of good ewes may be 
worth ten pounds. 

ShaL And is old Double dead ? 

Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I 
think. 

Enter Bardolph and one with him. 



6 Hit the white mark at twelve score yards. By an old statute, every 
person turned of seventeen years of age, who shoots at a less distance than 
twelve score, is to forfeit six shillings and eight pence. A forehand shaft is 
an arrow specially formed for shooting straight forward. To carry such an 
arrow fourteen score yards was doing well. 

7 Silence probably means, " That depends on their quality." Thereafter 
for according as. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I I9 

Bard. Good morrow, honest gentlemen : I beseech you, 
which is Justice Shallow ? 

Shal. I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this 
county, and one of the King's justices of the peace : what is 
your good pleasure with me ? 

Bard. My captain, sir, commends him to you ; my cap- 
tain, Sir John Falstaff ; a tall^ gentleman, by Heaven, and a 
most gallant leader. 

Shal. He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good back- 
sword ^ man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how 
my lady his wife doth ? 

Bard. Sir, pardon ; a soldier is better accommodated 
than with a wife. 

Shal. It is well said, in faith, sir ; and it is well said in- 
deed too. Better accommodated ! — it is good ; yea, in- 
deed, is it : good phrases are surely, and ever were, very 
commendable. Accommodated ! — it comes of accommodo : 
very good ; a good phrase. ^^ 

Bard. Pardon, sir ; I have heard the word. Phrase call 
you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase ;^i but I 
will maintain the word with my sword to be a soldier-like 
word, and a word of exceeding good command, by Heaven. 
Accommodated ; that is, when a man is, as they say, accom- 
modated ; or when a man is, — being, — whereby 'a may 
be thought to be accommodated ; which is an excellent 
thing. 

8 Bold, stout, able are old meanings of tall. See Twelfth Night, p. 35, n. 4. 

9 Backsword was the name a stick with a basket handle, used in rustic 
sports and exercises. The game of backsword is also called single-stick. 

10 It appears to have been fashionable in the Poet's time to introduce 
this word accommodate upon all occasions. Ben Jonson, in \i\s Discoveries^ 
calls it one of the perfumed terms of the time. 

11 Bardolph means that he does not understand the \foxd phrase. 



I20 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IIL 

Shal. It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. — 

Enter Falstaff. 

Give me your good hand, give me your Worship's good hand : 
by my troth, you hke well,i^ and bear your years very well : 
welcome, good Sir John. 

Fal. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shal- 
low. — Master Surecard, as I think ? 

Shal. No, Sir John ; it is my cousin Silence, in commis- 
sion with me. 

Fal. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of 
the peace. 

Sil. Your good Worship is welcome. 

Fal. Fie ! this is hot weather. — Gentlemen, have you 
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men ? 

Shal. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit ? 

Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you. 

Shal. Where's the roll? where 's the roll? where 's the roll? 
— Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so : yea, 
marry, sir : — Ralph Mouldy ! — let them appear as I call ; let 
them do so, let them do so. — Let me see ; where is Mouldy? 

Moul. Here, an't please you. 

Shal. What think you. Sir John? a good-limb'd fellow; 
young, strong, and of good friends. 

Fal. Is thy name Mouldy? 

Moul. Yea, an't please you. 
. Fal. 'Tis the more time thou wert used. 

Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! most excellent, i'faith ! things that are 
mouldy lack use : very singular good ! — in faith, well said. 
Sir John ; very well said. 

12 To like well is to be in good-liking ; that is, good condition. See First 
Part of Henry the Fourth, page 141, note 2. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 121 

Fal. [r^ Shallow.] Prick him. 13 

Motil. I was prick'd well enough before, an you could 
have let me alone : my old dame will be undone now, for 
one to do her husbandry and her drudgery : you need not 
to have prick'd me ; there are other men fitter to go out 
than I. 

Fal. Go to ; peace. Mouldy ! you shall go. Mouldy, it 
is time you were spent. 

MouL Spent ! 

Shal. Peace, fellow, peace ; stand aside : know you where 
you are? — For the others. Sir John : — let me see ;■ — Simon 
Shadow ! 

Fal. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under : he's like 
to be a cold soldier. 

Shal. Where's Shadow? 

Shad. Here, sir. 

Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou ? 

Shad. My mother's son, sir. 

Fal. Thy mother's son ! like enough ; and thy father's 
shadow : so the son of the female is the shadow of the male : 
it is often so, indeed ; but not much of the father's substance. 

Shal. Do you like him, Sir John ? 

Fal. Shadow will serve for Summer, — prick him ; for we 
have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book. 

Shal. Thomas Wart ! 

FaL Where's he? 

Wart. Here, sir. 

Fal. Is thy name Wart? 

Wart. Yea, sir. 

Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart. 

13 Prick hh}i is mark him; which was done by pricking a hole in the 
paper against the name. 



122 THE SECOND PART OF ACT III, 

Shal. Shall I prick him, Sir John ? 

Fal. It were superfluous ; for his apparel is built upon 
his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins : prick him 
no pQore. 

Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! — you can do it, sir ; you can do it : ^^ 
I commend you well. — Francis Feeble ! 

Fee. Here, sir. 

Fal. What trade art thou. Feeble ? 

Fee. A woman's tailor, sir. 

Shal. Shall I prick him, sir? 

Fal. You may : but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd 
ha' prick'd you. — Wilt thou make as many holes in an 
enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat? 

Fee. I will do my good will, sir ; you can have no 
more. 

Fal. Well said, good woman's tailor ! well said, courage- 
ous Feeble ! thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or 
most magnanimous mouse. — Prick the woman's tailor well, 
Master Shallow ; deep. Master Shallow. 

Fee. I would Wart might have gone, sir. 

Fal. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst 
mend him, and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a 
private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands : i^ let 
that suffice, most forcible Feeble. 

Fee. It shall suffice, sir. 

Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. — Who is next ? 
* Shal. Peter Bullcalf o' the green ! 

Fal. Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf. 

Bull. Here, sir. 

14 Probably meaning much the same as the phrase now in use, " You are 
up to it." 

15 Meaning, perhaps, that Wart commands an army of parasites. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 23 

Fill. ' Fore God, a likely fellow ! — Come, prick me Bullcalf 
till he roar again. 

Bull. O Lord ! good my lord captain, — 

Fal. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'd? 

Bull. O Lord, sir ! I am a diseased man. 

Fal. What disease hast thou? 

Bull. A whoreson cold, sir, — a cough, sir, — which I 
caught with ringing in the King's affairs upon his coronation- 
day, sir. 

Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown ; we will 
have away thy cold ; and I will take such order, that thy 
friends shall ring for thee. — Is here all ? 

Shal. Here is two more call'd than your number ; 1^ you 
must have but four here, sir : and so, I pray you, go in with 
me to dinner. 

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry 
dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth. Master Shal- 
low. 

Shal. O, Sir John, do you remember since ^'^ we lay all 
night in the windmill in Saint George's field ? 

Fal. No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of 
that. 

Shal. Ha, 't was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork 
alive ? 

Fal. She lives. Master Shallow. 

ShaL She never could away with me.^^ 

16 There is an apparent discrepancy here, as only five recruits have been 
named. Perhaps the Poet made a slip ; or perhaps, as Falstaff was to have 
but four, and as he has already accepted that number, the Poet did not 
choose to continue the process any further. 

1"^ Since for when. Repeatedly so. See Winter s Tale, page 156, note 15. 

18 This phrase — equivalent to cannot endure, or cannot abide — was quite 
common in Shakespeare's time, and is scarce obsolete yet. 



124 THE SECOND PART OF ACT III, 

FaL Never, never ; she would always say she could not 
abide Master Shallow. 

Shal. By the Mass, I could anger her to the heart. Doth 
she hold her own well? 

FaL Old, old. Master Shallow. 

Shal. Nay, she must be old ; she cannot choose but be 
old ; certain she's old ; and had Robin Nightwork by old 
Nightwork before I came to Clement's-Inn. 

Sil. That's fifty-five years ago. 

ShaL Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that 
this knight and I have seen ! — Ha, Sir John, said I well? 

FaL We have heard the chimes at midnight. Master 
Shallow. 

ShaL That we have, that we have, that we have ; in faith, 
Sir John, we have : our watch-word was. Hem, boys ! Come, 
let's to dinner ; come, let's to dinner : Jesu, the days that 
we have seen ! come, come. 

\_Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence. 

BulL Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend ; 
and here's four Harry ten shillings ^^ in French crowns for 
you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go : 
and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care ; but rather, 
because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a de- 
sire to stay with my friends ; else, sir, I did not care, for 
mine own part, so much. 

Bard. Go to ; stand aside. 
** Moid. And, good master corporal captain, for my old 
dame's sake, stand my friend : she has nobody to do any 
thing about her when I am gone ; and she is old, and cannot 
help herself : you shall have forty, sir. 

19 There were no coins of ten shillings' value in Henry the Fourth's time, 
Shakespeare's Harry ten shillings were those of Henry VH. or Henry VHI 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 125 

Bard. Go to ; stand aside. 

Fee. By my troth, I care not ; a man can die but once j 
we owe God a death : I'll ne'er bear a base mind : an't be 
my destiny, so ; an't be not, so : no man's too good to 
serve's prince ; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies 
this year is quit for the next. 

Bard. Well said ; thou'rt a good fellow. 

Fee. Faith, I'll bear no base mind. 

Re-enter Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence. 

Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have ? 

ShaL Four of which you please. 

Bard. Sir, a word with you : I have three pound ^^ to 
free Mouldy and Bullcalf. 

Fal. Go to ; well. 

Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have ? 

Fal. Do you choose for me. 

Shal. Marry, then. Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow. 

Fal. Mouldy and Bullcalf: — for you. Mouldy, stay at 
home till you are past service ; — and for your part, Bullcalf, 
grow till you come unto it : I will none of you. 

Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong : they 
are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with 
the best. 

Fal. Will you tell me. Master Shallow, how to choose a 
man? Care I for the limb, the thews,^^ the stature, bulk, 
and big assemblance of a man ! Give me the spirit. Master 

20 Bardolph was to have four pound : perhaps he means to conceal part 
of his profit. 

21 Shakespeare uses thews in a sense almost peculiar to himself, for mus- 
cular strength or sinews. In ancient writers, thews generally signifies man- 
ners, behaviour, or qualities of the mind or disposition ; in which sense it is 
used by Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and others. 



126 THE SECOND PART OF 4CT III. 

Shallow. Here's Wart ; you see what a ragged appearance 
it is : 'a shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion 
of a pewterer's hammer ; come off, and on, swifter than he 
that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket.^^ And this same half- 
faced fellow, Shadow, give me this man : he presents no 
mark to the enemy ; the foeman may with as great aim level 
at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat, how swiftly 
will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off ! O, give me the 
spare men, and spare me the great ones. — Put me a cali- 
ver^^ into Wart's hand, Bardolph. 

Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse ; ^4 thus, thus, thus. 

Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So : — very well : 
go to : — very good ; exceeding good. — O, give me always 
a little, lean, old, chapp'd, bald shot.^^ — Well said, i'faith, 
Wart ; thou'rt a good scab : hold, there's a tester for thee. 

ShaL He is not his craft 's-master ; he doth not do it 
right. I remember at Mile-end Green,^^ when I lay at 
Clement's-Inn, — I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,^^ 

22 Johnson explains this from a personal acquaintance with the terms of 
the brewery, " Swifter than he who puts the buckets on the beam, or gibbet^ 
that passes across his shoulders, in order to carry the beer from the vat to 
the barrel." 

23 A caliver was lighter than a musket, and was fired without a rest. 

24 Traverse was an ancient military term for march. " Traverse," says 
Bullokar, " to march up and down, or to move the feet with proportion, as 
in dancing." 

25 Skof for shooter. So in the Exercise of Arms, 1609 : " First of all is 
in this figure showed to every shot how he shall stand and march, and carry 
his caliver r — Well said was used where we should say " well done!' 

26 Mile-End Green was the place for public sports and exercises. Stowe 
mentions that, in 1585, four thousand citizens were trained and exercised 
there. 

27 Arthur's show was an exhibition of archers, styling themselves " the 
Auncient Order, Society and Unitie laudable of Prince Arthure and his 
Knightly Armory of the Round Table." The members were fifty-eight ia 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 12/ 

— there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you 
his piece thus ; and 'a would about and about, and come 
you in and come you in : rah, tah, tah, would 'a say ; 
bounce-^ would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and 
again would 'a come : I shall ne'er see such a fellow. 

Fal. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow. — God 
keep you. Master Silence : I will not use many words with 
you. Fare you well, gentlemen both : I thank you. I must 
a dozen mile to-night. — Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. 

Shal. Sir John, the Lord bless you ! God prosper your 
affairs ! God send us peace ! As you return, visit my house ; 
let our old acquaintance be renewed : peradventure I will 
with you to the Court. 

Fal. 'Fore God, I would you would. Master Shallow. 

Shal. Go to ; I have spoke at a word.^Q Fare you 
well. 

Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentleman. \_Exeunt Shal- 
low and Silence.] — On, Eardolph ; lead the men away, 
[^^^z^/z/ Bardolph, Recruits, 6^^.] — As I return, I will fetch 
off these justices : ^^^ I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. 

number, taking the names of the knights in the romantic history of that 
chivalric worthy. This society was established by charter under King 
Henry the Eighth, who, "when he saw a good archer indeede, chose him 
and ordained such a one for a knight of this order." Shakespeare has 
heightened the ridicule of Shallow's vanity and folly, by making him boast 
that he was Sir Dagonet, who is represented in the romance as King Arthur's 
Fool. — Quiver is nimble, active, spry. 

28 Bounce was used, as we use bang, to express the report of a gun. See 
King yohn, page 68, note 52. — It is hardly needful to say that in "manage 
you," "come you in," &c., ihe-you is simply expletive. The Poet has a great 
many such, 

29 At a word is an old phrase for in short or in brief. Shallow means 
that he'll keep his word ; or that one word from him is as good as a hun- 
dred, 

30 The equivalent language of our time is, " I will come it over these jus- 



128 THE SECOND PART OF ACT HI. 

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of 
lying ! This same starved justice hath done nothing but 
prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he 
hath done about Turnbull-street ; and every third word a 
lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do 
remember him at Clement's-Inn, like a man made after 
supper of a cheese-paring : when 'a was naked, he was, for 
all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically 
carved upon it with a knife ; 'a was so forlorn, that his 
dimensions to any thick sight were invisible : 'a was the very 
genius of famine : 'a came ever in the rearward of the 
fashion ; and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd^i huswives 
that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his 
Fancies or his Good-nights.^^ And now is this Vice's dag- 
ger ^^ become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John o' 
Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him ; and I'll be 
sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in the Tilt-yard ; and then 
he burst 2"^ his head for crowding among the marshal's men. 
I saw it, and told John o' Gaunt he beat his own name ; ^^ 
for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an 
eel-skin ; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for 

tices." How he will do this, appears a little further on. — The implied pun 
on Shallow in bottom is obvious enough. 

31 Scutch'd is commonly explained to mean the same as switched or 
whipped. — The passage aptly hits off a perpetual sort of people who never 
find out what the fashion is, till it has passed away. Antony gives a like 
character to Lepidus in Julius Ccesar. 

32 The old Poets sometimes called their slight lyrical effusions by the 
name of Fancies and Good-nights. 

33 There is something excessively ludicrous in the comparison of Shallow 
to this powerless weapon of that droll personage, the old Vice or Fool. See 
Twelfth Night, page 119, note 17. 

S'i Burst, brast, and broken were formerly synonymous. 
35 That he was gaunter than Gaunt. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 29 

him, a court : and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll 
be acquainted with him, if I return ; and it shall go hard but 
I'll make him a philosopher's two stones to me : ^^ if the 
young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in 
the law of Nature, but I may snap at him. Let time shape, 
and there an end. \_Exti. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Gaultree Forest in Yorkshire. 

Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings, and 
others. 

Arch. What is this forest call'd? 

Hast. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace. 

Arch. Here stand, my lords ; and send discoverers forth 
To know the numbers of our enemies. 

Hast. We have sent forth already. 

Arch. 'Tis well done. 

My friends and brethren in these great affairs, 
I must acquaint you that I have received 
New-dated letters from Northumberland ; 
Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus : 
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers 
As might hold sortance with his quality, 
The which he could not levy ; whereupon 

36 This is only a humorous exaggerative way of expressing, " He shall be 
more than the philosopher's stone to me, or twice as good." " It shall go 
hard but I will make " means " It must be a hard task indeed, if I do not 
work it through." See Hamlet, page 166, note 37. 



130 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes, 
To Scotland ; and concludes in hearty prayers 
That your attempts may overlive the hazard 
And fearful meeting of their opposite. 

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground, 
And dash themselves to pieces. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Hast. Now, what news? 

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, 
In goodly form comes on the enemy ; 
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number 
Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand. 

Mowb. The just proportion that we gave them out. 
Let us sway on,i and face them in the field. 

Arch. What well-appointed ^ leader fronts us here? 

Mowb. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland. 

Enter Westmoreland. 

West. Health and fair greeting from our general, 
The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster. 

Arch. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace. 
What doth concern your coming. 

West. Then, my lord, 

Unto your Grace do I in chief address 
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion 
Came like itself, in base and abject routs, 

1 To sway was sometimes used for a rushing, hasty movement. Thus 
Holinshed : " The left side of the enemy was compelled to sway a good way 
back and give ground." 

2 Well-appointed is the same as well-furnished, or well-equipped. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I3I 

Led on by heady youth, guarded ^ with rags, 

And countenanced by boys and beggary, — 

I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd, 

In his true, native, and most proper shape, 

You, reverend father, and these noble lords, 

Had not been here, to dress the ugly form 

Of bare and bloody insurrection 

With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop, — 

Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd ; 

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd ; 

Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd ; 

Whose white investments^ figure innocence, 

The dove and very blessed spirit of peace, — 

Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself 

Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace, 

Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war; 

Turning your books to greaves,^ your ink to blood, 

Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine 

To a loud trumpet and a point of war?^ 

Arch. Wherefore do I this ? so the question stands. 
Briefly to this end : We are all diseased ; 

3 Guarded is a term of dress ; to guard being to ornament with guards 
or facings. See Much Ado, page 34, note 30. 

■* Formerly all bishops wore white, even when they travelled. This 
white investment was the episcopal rochet. 

5 Greaves were leg-armour, and were sometimes made of leather ; and, 
as books were covered with leather, the figure of turning mind-armour into 
leg-armour was natural and apt. 

6 A point of war is a warlike strain of music. So in Greene's Orlando 
Furioso : " To play him hunt's-up with a point of war!' And in Peele's 
Edward the First, 1593 : " Sound proudly here a perfect point of war" 
Also, Scott, in Waverly, Chap. xlvi. : " The trumpets and kettle-drums of the 
cavalry were next heard to perform the beautiful and wild point of war ap- 
propriated as a signal for that piece of nocturnal duty." 



132 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV 

And with our surfeiting and wanton hours 

Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, 

And we must bleed for it : of which disease 

Our late King, Richard, being infected, died. 

But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland, 

I take not on me here as a physician ; 

Nor do I, as an enemy to peace, 

Troop in the throngs of military men ; 

But, rather, show awhile like fearful war, 

To diet rank minds sick of happiness, 

And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop 

Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly. 

I have in equal balance justly weigh 'd 

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer. 

And find our griefs heavier than our offences. 

We see which way the stream of time doth run, 

And are enforced from our most quiet sphere 

By the rough torrent of occasion ; 

And have the summary of all our griefs, 

When time shall serve, to show in articles ; 

Which long ere this we offer'd to the King, 

And might by no suit gain our audience : 

When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs, 

We are denied access unto his person 

Even by those men that most have done us wrong. 

The dangers of the days but newly gone. 

Whose memory is written on the earth 

With yet-appearing blood, and the examples 

Of every minute's instance,''' present now. 

Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms ; 

■^"Examples of every minute's instance" probably means examples 
which every minute supplies or instances. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 133 

Not to break peace, or any branch of it, 
But to establish here a peace indeed, 
Concurring both in name and quality. 

Wes^. When ever yet was your appeal denied ; 
Wherein have you been galled by the King ; 
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you; 
That you should seal this lawless bloody book 
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine, 
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge ? 

Arch. My burden general is the commonwealth ; 
To brother born an household cruelty, 
I make my quarrel in particular.^ 

West. There is no need of any such redress ; 
Or, if there were, it not belongs to you. 

Mowb. Why not to him in part, and to us all 
That feel the bruises of the days before, 
And suffer the condition of these times 
To lay a heavy and unequal hand 
Upon our honours ? 

West. O, my good Lord Mowbray, 

Construe the times to their necessities. 
And you shall say indeed, it is the time. 
And not the King, that doth you injuries. 
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me. 
Either from th' King, or in the present time. 
That you should have an inch of any ground 

8 Here burden general oi conrsQ refers to \he public grievances which the 
speaker has just been recounting, and for the redress of which he claims to 
be in arms. Then, besides this, he has a private or particular cause of 
quarrel in the wounding of his household affections by the cruelty inflicted 
on his own brother. So, in the First Part, i. 3, we have Worcester 
speaking of the Archbishop as " bearing hard his brother's death at Bristol, 
the Lord Scroop." See Critical Notes. 



134 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

To build a grief on : were you not restored 

To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories, 

Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's? 

Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father lost, 
That need to be revived and breathed in me ? 
The King, that loved him, as the State stood then 
Was, force perforce,^ compell'd to banish him : 
And when that Henry Bolingbroke and he 
Being mounted and both roused in their seats. 
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur, 
Their armed staves in charge,^^ their beavers down,ii 
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel, i^ 
And the loud trumpet blowing them together ; 
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd 
My father from the breast of BoHngbroke, — 
O, when the King did throw his warder down,i3 
His own life hung upon the staff he threw : 
Then threw he down himself, and all their lives 
That by indictment and by dint of sword 
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke. 

West. You speak. Lord Mowbray, now you know not 
what. 

9 Force perforce was a reduplicate way of intensifying an expression of 
necessity ; like the French force forcee. The Poet has it repeatedly thus. 
So in 2 King Hejiry VI., i, i : " And, force perforce, I'll make him yield the 
crown." See, also. King jfokn, page 8o, note lo. 

10 That is, their lances being fixed in rest for the encounter. 

11 The beaver was a movable part of the helmet, covering the face in 
fight, but lifted up when the wearer chose. See First Part, page 154, note 20. 

12 The holes in their helmets, through which they could see to direct 
their aim. 

13 This refers to the act of Richard in arresting the duel between Boling- 
broke and the Duke of Norfolk, and ordering them both into exile. The 
matter is represented at length in the third scene of King Richard II. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 35 

The Earl of Hereford ^"^ was reputed then 

In England the most valiant gentleman : 

Who knows on whom Fortune would then have smiled? 

But, if your father had been victor there, 

He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry : 

For all the country, in a general voice, 

Cried hate upon him ; and all their prayers and love 

Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on, 

And bless 'd and graced indeed, more than the King. 

But this is mere digression from my purpose. 

Here come I from our princely general 

To know your griefs ; to tell you from his Grace 

That he will give you audience ; and, wherein 

It shall appear that your demands are just, 

You shall enjoy them ; every thing set off 

That might so much as think you enemies. ^^ 

Mowb. But he hath forced us to compel this offer ; 
And it proceeds from policy, not love. 

West. Mowbray, you overween to take it so ; 
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear : 
For, lo ! within a ken our army lies ; 
Upon mine honour, all too confident 
To give admittance to a thought of fear. 
Our battle is more full of names than yours, 
Our men more perfect in the use of arms, 
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ; 
Then reason wills our hearts should be as good : 

14 This is a mistake ; he was Duke of Hereford. 

15 A thing is often spoken of as doi?ig that which it in any way causes ta 
be done. So here the meaning seems to be, " every thing being struck off 
from your record, that might so much as cause you to be thought enemies." 
Shakespeare has many hke expressions. See, however. Critical Notes. 



136 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd. 

Mowb. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley. 

West. That argues but the shame of your offence : 
A rotten case abides no handling. 

Hast. Hath the Prince John a full commission, 
In very ample virtue of his father. 
To hear and absolutely to determine 
Of what conditions we shall stand upon ? 

West. That is intended in the general's name : 
I muse 16 you make so slight a question. 

Arch. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule ; 
For this contains our general grievances : 
Each several article herein redress'd. 
All members of our cause, both here and hence, 
That are insinew'd to this action, 
Acquitted by a true substantial form. 
And present execution of our wills 
To us and to our purposes confirm'd, — 
We come within our awful banks ^^ again. 
And knit our powers to the arm of peace. 

West. This will I show the general. Please you, lords. 
In sight of both our battles we may meet ; 
And either end in peace, — which God so frame ! — ■ 
Or to the place of difference call the swords 
Which must decide it. 

Arch. My lord, we will do so. \_Exit West. 



16 To muse for to wonder, to marvel. Often so. 

17 That is, banks full of awe or respect for authority and law. The image 
of a river is suggested ; human life being compared to a stream that ought 
to flow in reverential obedience to the order and institutions of the State. 
Keeping itself within the proper bounds, it moves in reverence and awe; in 
overflowing them it renounces this. See Riehard II., page iii, note 3, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 137 

Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom tells me 
That no conditions of our peace can stand. 

Hast. Fear you not that : if we can make our peace 
Upon such large terms and so absolute 
As our conditions shall consist upon, 
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. 

Mowb, Ay, but our valuation shall be such, 
That every slight and false-derived cause, 
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason, 
Shall to the King taste of this action ; 
That, were our royal faiths ^^ martyrs in love, 
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind. 
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff. 
And good from bad find no partition. 

Arch. No, no, my lord. Note this, the King is weary 
Of dainty and such picking i^ grievances : 
For he hath found, to end one doubt by death 
Revives two greater in the heirs of life ; 
And therefore will he wipe his tables ^^ clean. 
And keep no tell-tale to his memory, 
That may repeat and history his loss 
To new remembrance. For full well he knows 
He cannot so precisely weed this land 
As his misdoubts present occasion : 

18 " Our royal faiths " means owx good-faith, or onx fidelity, to the King; 
the adjective standing for the object of the substantive. 

19 Picking is petty, paltry, trifling, or ijisignificant. The idea is of one 
refining, " straining at a gnat," or making too much of small things. The 
Poet h.2& picked several times in the same sense. So in Love's Labours, v. 
I : " He is too picked, too spruce, too affected," &c. See King John, 
page 45, note 21. 

20 The image is of table-books of slate, ivory, wax, &c., used for noting 
and keeping memoranda upon. 



138 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV 

His foes are so enrooted with his friendsj 
That, plucking to unfix an enemy, 
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend. 
So that this land, Hke an offensive wife 
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes, 
As he is striking, holds his infant up. 
And hangs resolved correction in the arm 
That was uprear'd to execution.^i 

Hast. Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods 
On late offenders, that he now doth lack 
The very instruments of chastisement : 
So that his power, like to a fangless lion, 
May offer, but not hold. 

Arch. 'Tis very true : 

And therefore be assured, my good Lord Marshal, 
If we do now make our atonement well. 
Our peace will, like a broken limb united. 
Grow stronger for the breaking. 

Mowb. Be it so. 

Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland. 

21 The expression is rather obscure, owing partly to the mixing of simile 
and metaphor, partly to a peculiar use of hangs, which here means sjispends 
or arrests, and partly to the double reference in him to the King and to the 
husband implied in wife. The meaning, therefore, comes something thus : 
" So that the land, or the wife, as the King, or the husband, is striking, 
causes the purposed stroke to hang unfinished " ; that is, " suspends or arrests 
the correction he had resolved or determined on, and had upreared his arm 
to execute." The verb to hang is used just so again in Troilus and Cres- 
sida, iv. 5 : " When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' the air, not letting 
it decline on the declined " ; that is, not letting it ya// upon the /«//<?«. Here 
advanced is uplifted or upraised. The Poet has many like instances of 
verbs used in a causative sense. See note 15, above. The substance of 
thi; exDlanation was written to me by Mr. Joseph Crosby, under date 
" Feb. 9, 1880: 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 39 

Re-e7iter Westmoreland. 

West. The Prince is here at hand : pleaseth your lordship 
To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies. 

Mowb, Your Grace of York, in God's name, then, set for- 
ward. 
Arch. Before, and greet his Grace : my lord, we come. 

\_Exeunf. 

Scene II . — Another Part of the Forest. 

Enter, from one side, Mowbray, the Archbishop, Hastings, 
and others ; from the other side, Lancaster, Westmore- 
land, Officers, (3; ;2^ Attendants. 

Lan. You're well encounter 'd here, my cousin Mow- 
bray : — 
Good day to you, gentle lord Archbishop ; — 
And so to you. Lord Hastings, — and to all. — 
My Lord of York, it better show'd with you, 
When that your flock, assembled by the bell. 
Encircled you to hear with reverence 
Your exposition on the holy text, 
Than now to see you here an iron man,i 
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum. 
Turning the word to sword, and life to death. 
That man that sits within a monarch's heart. 
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour. 
Would he abuse the countenance of the king, 
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach, 

1 Holinshed says of the Archbishop that, " coming foorth amongst them 
clad in armour, he encouraged and pricked them foorth to the enterprise 
in hand." 



140 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

In shadow of such greatness ! With you, Lord Bishop, 

It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken. 

How deep you were within the books of God ? 

To us the speaker in His parHament ; 

To us th' imagined voice of God himself; 

The very opener and intelHgencer 

Between the grace, the sanctities of Heaven 

And our dull workings. O, who shall believe. 

But you misuse the reverence of your place, 

Employ the countenance and grace of Heaven, 

As a false favourite doth his prince's name, 

In deeds dishonourable ? You have ta'en up, 

Under the counterfeited seal of God, 

The subjects of His substitute, my father. 

And both against the peace of Heaven and him 

Have here up-swarm'd them. 

Arch. Good my Lord of Lancaster, 

I am not here against your father's peace ; 
But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland, 
The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,^ 
Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form. 
To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace 
The parcels and particulars of our grief, — 
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the Court, — 
Whereon this Hydra son of war is born ; 
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep 
With grant of our most just and right desires ; 
And true obedience, of this madness cured. 
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty. 

Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes 

2 That is, "the feeling, which we all have in common, of the public griev' 
ances." A classical use of sense. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I4I 

To the last man. 

Hast. And, though we here fall down, 

We have supplies to second our attempt : 
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them ; 
And so success ^ of mischief shall be born, 
And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up. 
Whiles England shall have generation. 

Lan. You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow, 
To sound the bottom of the after-times. 

West. Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly. 
How far-forth you do hke their articles. 

Lan. I like them all, and do allow ^ them well ; 
And swear here, by the honour of my blood, 
My father's purposes have been mistook ; 
And some about him have too lavishly 
Wrested his meaning and authority. — 
My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress 'd ; 
Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you. 
Discharge your powers unto their several counties, 
As we will ours : and here, between the armies. 
Let's drink together friendly and embrace, 
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home 
Of our restored love and amity. 

Arch. I take your princely word for these redresses. 

Lan. I give it you, and will maintain my word : 
And thereupon I drink unto your Grace. \_Dnnks. 

Hast. \_To an Officer.] Go, captain, and deliver to the 
army 

3 Success for succession. A frequent usage. See Richard III., page 166, 
note 26. 

4 Approve is an old meaning of allow. Very often so in the Bible. See, 
also, The Winter's Tale, page 49, note 29. 



142 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

This news of peace : let them have pay, and part : ^ 
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain. 

\_£xit Officer. 

Arch. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland. \_Drinks. 

West. I pledge your Grace \_£>rinks.'\ ; and, if you knew 
what pains 
I have bestow'd to breed this present peace. 
You would drink freely : but my love to ye 
Shall show itself more openly hereafter. 

Arch. I do not doubt you. 

West. I am glad of it. — 

Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray. \Djinks. 

Mowb. You wish me health in very happy season ; 
For I am, on the sudden, something ill. 

Arch. Against ill chances men are ever merry ; 
But heaviness foreruns the good event. 

West. Therefore be merry, coz ; since sudden sorrow 
Seems to say thus. Some good thing comes to-morrow. 

Arch. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit. 

Mowb. So much the worse, if your own rule be true. 

\_Shouts within. 

JLan. The word of peace is render'd : hark, how they shout ! 

Mowb. This had been cheerful after victory. 

Arch. A peace is of the nature of a conquest ; 
For then both parties nobly are subdued, 
And neither party loser. 

Laii. Go, my lord, 

And let our army be discharged too. \_Exit West. 

And, good my lord, so please you, let your trains 
March by us, that we may peruse the men 

5 Part for depart ; the two words being used interchangeably by old 
writers. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I43 

We should have coped withal. 

Arch. Go, good Lord Hastings, 

And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by. \_Exit Hast. 

Lan. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together. — 

Re-enter Westmoreland. 

Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still? 

West. The leaders, having charge from you to stand. 
Will not go off until they hear you speak. 

Lan. They know their duties. 

Re-enter Hastings. 

Hast. My lord, our army is dispersed already : 
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses 
East, west, north, south ; or, like a school broke up, 
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place. 

West. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings ; for the which 
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason : — 
And you. Lord Archbishop, — and you. Lord Mowbray, — - 
Of capital treason I attach you both. 

Mowb. Is this proceeding just and honourable? 

West. Is your assembly so ? 

Arch. Will you thus break your faith ? 

Lan. I pawn'd thee none : 

I promised you redress of these same grievances 
Whereof you did complain ; which, by mine honour, 
I will perform with a most Christian care. 
But, for you, rebels, look to taste the due 
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours. 
Most shallowly did you these arms commence, 
Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence. - — 
Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter' d stray : 



144 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day. — 

Some guard these traitors to the block of death. 

Treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath.^ [Exeunt 



Scene III. — Another Part of the Forest. 

Alarums: excursions. Enter Falstaff and Colevile, 
meeting. 

Fal. What's your name, sir? of what condition are you, 
and of what place, I pray ? 

Cole. I am a knight, sir ; and my name is Colevile of the 
Dale. 

Fal. Well, then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your 
degree, and your place the Dale : Colevile shall be still your 
name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a 
dale deep enough ; so shall you be still Colevile of the Dale. 

Cole. Are not you Sir John Falstaff? 

Fal. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do ye 
yield, sir ? or shall I sweat for you ? If I do sweat, they are 
the drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death : there- 
fore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance to my 
mercy. 

Cole. I think you are Sir John Falstaff; and in that 
thought yield me. 

6 Johnson and other critics have been indignant that the Poet did not 
put into the mouth of some character a strain of indignation against this in- 
stance of treachery. In answer to which Verplanck very aptly quotes a 
remark said to have been made by Chief Justice Marshall. The counsel, it 
seems, had been boring the court a long time with trying to prove points 
that nobody doubted ; and the judge, after bearing it as long as he well 
could, very quietly informed him that " there were some things which the 
court might safely be presumed to know." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 145 

Fal. I have a whole school of tongues in this body of 
mine ; and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word 
but my name. An I had but a body of any indifferency, I 
were simply the most active fellow in Europe. Here comes 
our general. 

Enter Lancaster, Westmoreland, Blunt, and others, 

Lan. The heat is past ; follow no further now : — 
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland. — 

\_Exit Westmoreland. 
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while ? 
When every thing is ended, then you come : 
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life. 
One time or other break some gallows' back. 

Fal, I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus : 
I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of 
valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? 
have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of thought ? 
I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possi- 
bility ; I have founder'd nine-score and odd posts : and here, 
travel-tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate 
valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the Dale, a most furious 
knight and valourous enemy. But what of that ? he saw me, 
and yielded ; that I may justly say with the hook-nosed fel- 
low of Rome,i I came, saw, and overcame. 

Lan. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving. 

Fal. I know not : here he is, and here I yield him : and 

1 I cannot tell whence the Poet got his hint for this epithet hook-nosed ; 
perhaps from some of the Dictator's coins, engravings of which were doubt- 
less printed in his time. In his earlier years, Julius Caesar was eminently 
handsome in face and person ; but it is said that, what with his disease, and 
his continual rapture of administrative energy, he was in his latter years 
worn thin, and his nose had a hooked appearance, sure enough. 



146 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

I beseech your Grace, let it be book'd with the rest of this 
day's deeds ; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular 
ballad else, with mine own picture on the top of it, Colevile 
kissing my foot : to the which course if I be enforced, if you 
do not all show like gilt two-pences to me, and I, in the 
clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full Moon 
doth the cinders of the element,^ which show like pins' heads 
to her, believe not the word of the noble : therefore let me 
have right, and let desert mount. 

Lan. Thine's too heavy to mount. 

Fal. Let it shine, then. 

Lan. Thine's too thick to shine. 

Fal. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me 
good, and call it what you will. 

Lan. Is thy name Colevile ? 

Cole. It is, my lord. 

Lan. A famous rebel art thou, Colevile. 

FaL And a famous true subject took him. 

Cole. I am, my lord, but as my betters are, 
That led me hither : had they been ruled by me, 
You should have won them dearer than you have. 

FaL I know not how they sold themselves : but thou, like 
a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis ; and I thank thee 

Re-enter Westmoreland. 

Lan. Now, have you left pursuit? 
West. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd. 
Lan. Send Colevile, with his confederates, 
To York, to present execution : — 
Blunt, lead him hence ; and see you guard him sure. — 

\_Exetmt Blunt and others with Colevile. 
2 A ludicrous term for the stars. The Poet uses element for sky. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 147 

And now dispatch we toward the Court, my lords : 
I hear the King my father is sore sick : 
Our news shall go before us to his Majesty, — 
Which, cousin, you shall bear, — to comfort him ; 
And we with sober speed will follow you. 

Fal. My lord, 'beseech you, give me leave to go 
Through Glostershire : and, when you come to Court, 
Stand my good lord,*^ pray, in your good report. 

Lan. Fare you well, Falstaff : I, in my condition,^ 
Shall better speak of you than you deserve. 

\_Exeunt all but Falstaff. 

Fal. I would you had but the wit : 'twere better than 
your dukedom. — Good faith, this same young sober-blooded 
boy doth not love me ; nor a man cannot make him laugh : 
but that's no marvel ; he drinks no wine. There's never any 
of these demure boys come to any proof ; ^ for thin drink doth 
so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that 
they fall into a kind of male green-sickness : they are generally 
fools and cowards ; which some of us should be too, but for in- 
flammation.6 A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in 



3 stand my good lord, or be my good lord, means stand my friend, be my 
patron or benefactor, report well of me. 

4 Condition, here, probably means office, or official capacity, as com- 
manding general. Or it may mean the speaker's social position, his 
princely rank. The word commonly means, in Shakespeare, temper or dis- 
position. 

5 A rather singular use oi proof, but probably decisive result; a? the 
quality of a tree is proved hy its fruit. Or it may mean prove, that is, turn 
out, any thing. So in Bacon's essay Of Parents and Children : " The proof 
is best when men keep their authority towards their children, but not their 
purse " ; where the meaning is, it proves, or turns out, best. 

6 Inflammation here means heating, kindling, or setting on fire. Shake- 
speare uses the verb to infiame in the same sense. See King John, page 
124, note I. 



148 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

it. It ascends me into the brain ; dries me there all the foolish 
and dull and crudy vapours which environ it ; makes it ap- 
prehensive, quick, forgetive,''' full of nimble, fiery, and delect- 
able shapes ; which, deliver'd o'er to the tongue, which is the 
birth, become excellent wit. The second property of your 
excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood ; which, before 
cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the 
badge of pusillanimity and cowardice ; but the sherris 
warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the 
.parts extreme : it illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, 
gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, Man, to 
arm ; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits 
muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and 
puif'd up^ with his retinue, doth any deed of courage: 
and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon 
is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work ; and learning, 
a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil,^ till sack commences 
it, and sets it in act and use.^^ Hereof comes it, that Prince 
Harry is valiant ; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit 
of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, ma- 
nured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent endeavour of 
drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is 

7 Forgetive is inventive or imaginative. So the Poet has forgery in the 
sense of imagination; as in Hamlet, iv. 4: "That I, m. forgery of shapes 
and tricks, come short of what he did." 

8 Puff'd up here means animated or inspired. Shakespeare uses puff'd 
in the same sense in Hamlet, iv. i : " Whose spirit, with divine ambition 
puff'd, makes mouths at the invisible event." 

9 It was anciently supposed that all the mines of gold, &c., were guarded 
by evil spirits. See Hamlet, page 168, note 4. 

1" Alluding to the Commencement and the Act of the Universities, where 
those terms were used, to denote the occasion when students received full 
authority to use those hoards of learning which entitled them to their several 
degrees. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 149 

become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the 
first human principle I would teach them should be, to for- 
swear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack. — 

Enter Bardolph. 

How now, Bardolph ! 

Bard. The army is discharged all, and gone. 

Fal. Let them go. I'll through Glostershire ; and there 
will I visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire : I have him 
already tempering between my finger and my thumb,^^ and 
shortly will I seal with him. Come away. \_Exeunf. 



- Scene IV. — Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber. 

Enter King Henry, Clarence, Gloster, Warwick, and 
others. 

King. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end 
To this debate that bleedeth at our doors. 
We will our youth lead on to higher fields. 
And draw no swords but what are sanctified. 
Our navy is address'd,i our power collected, 
Our substitutes in absence well invested, 
And every thing lies level to our wish : 
Only, we want a little personal strength ; 
And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot, 
Come underneath the yoke of government. 

War. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty 
Shall soon enjoy. 

King. Humphrey, my son of Gloster, 

11 A characteristic allusion to the old use of soft wax in sealing. 
1 Addressed is made ready ox prepared. Often so. 



150 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

Where is the Prince your brother ? 

Glos. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor. 

King. And how accompanied? 

Glos. I do not know, my lord. 

King. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him ? 

Glos. No, my good lord ; he is in presence here. 

Clar. What would my lord and father ? 

King. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence. 
How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother? 
He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas : 
Thou hast a better place in his affection 
Than all thy brothers : cherish it, my boy ; 
And noble offices thou mayst effect 
Of mediation, after I am dead, 
Between his greatness and thy other brethren. 
Therefore omit him not ; blunt not his love, 
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace 
By seeming cold or careless of his will ; 
For he is gracious, if he be observed : ^ 
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand 
Open as day for melting charity : 
Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint ; 
As humorous 3 as Winter, and as sudden 
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.^ 

2 That is, if he have respectful attentions shown him. 

3 Humorous here is capricious or variable. See First Part, p. 130, n. 25. 
'* ■* Edwards says, in explanation of this passage, that he has heard fiaws 

used for " the small blades of ice which are struck on the edges of water, 
in winter mornings." This explanation is endorsed by Dyce, who adds, 
" I have myself heard the word used to signify both thin cakes of ice and 
the bursting of those cakes'.' The more usual meaning oi flaws is sudden 
gusts or starts of wind, such as are apt to spring up in the morning. But in 
this %Qx\.'i,Q flaws evidently will not cohere with congealed, unless the latter be 
taken for congealing, the passive for the active. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I5I 

His temper, therefore, must be well observed : 

Chide him for faults, and do it reverently, 

When you perceive his blood incHned to mirth : 

But, being moody, give him line and scope. 

Till that his passions, like a whale on ground, 

Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas, 

And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends ; 

A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in. 

That the united vessel of their blood, 

Mingled with venom of suggestion,^ — 

As, force perforce, the age will pour it in, — 

Shall never leak, though it do work as strong 

As aconitum or rash^ gunpowder. 

Clar. I shall observe him with all care and love. 

King. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas ? 

Clar. He is not there to-day ; he dines in London. 

King. And how accompanied ? canst thou tell that ? 

Clar. With Pointz, and other his continual followers. 

King. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds ; 
And he, the noble image of my youth. 
Is overspread with them : therefore my grief 
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death : 
The blood weeps from my heart, when I do shape, 
In forms imaginary, th' unguided days 
And rotten times that you shall look upon 
When I am sleeping with my ancestors. 
For, when his headstrong riot hath no curb, 

6 Though their blood be inflamed by the poison of temptation. This use 
of suggest and its derivatives vi^as very common. See The Tempest, page 
89, note 53. 

« Aconitum, or aconite, wolf's-lane, a poisonous herb. — Rash is sudden, 
hasty^ violent. 



152 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

When rage and hot blood are his counsellors, 
When means and lavish manners meet together, 
O, with what wings shall his affections ''' fly 
Towards fronting peril and opposed decay ! 

War. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite : 
The Prince but studies his companions. 
Like a strange tongue ; wherein, to gain the language, 
'Tis needful that the most immodest word 
Be look'd upon and learn'd ; which once attain'd. 
Your Highness knows, comes to no further use 
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms. 
The Prince will, in the perfectness of time. 
Cast off his followers ; and their memory 
Shall as a pattern or a measure live. 
By which his Grace must mete the lives of others. 
Turning past evils to advantages. 

King. 'Tis seldom-when^ the bee doth leave her comb 
In the dead carrion.^ — 

Enter Westmoreland. 

Who's here? Westmoreland? 
West. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness 
Added to that that I am to deliver ! 
Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand : 
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all. 
Are brought to the correction of your law ; 
There is not now a rebel's sWord unsheath'd, 

7 Affections, in the language of Shakespeare's time, are passions, desires, 
Appetitus animi. 

8 This compound, used twice by the Poet, is merely equivalent to seldom. 

9 As the bee, having once placed her comb in a carcass, stays by her 
honey, so he that has once taken pleasure in bad company will continue to 
associate with those that have the art of pleasing him. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 53 

But Peace puts forth her ohve everywhere. 

The manner how this action hath been borne, 

Here at more leisure may your Highness read, 

With every course in his particular. [ Giving a packet. 

King. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird. 
Which ever in the haunch of Winter sings 
The lifting-up of day. Look, here's more news. 

Enter Harcourt. 

Har. From enemies Heaven keep your Majesty ; 
And, when they stand against you, may they fall 
As those that I am come to tell you of ! 
The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph, 
With a great power of English and of Scots, 
Are by the shrieve i^ of Yorkshire overthrown : 
The manner and true order of the fight, 
This packet, please it you, contains at large. [ Giving a packet. 

King. And wherefore should these good news make me 
sick? 
Will Fortune never come with both hands full. 
But write her fair words still in foulest letters ? 
She either gives a stomach, and no food, — 
Such are the poor, in health ; or else a feast. 
And takes away the stomach, — such the rich. 
That have abundance, and enjoy it not. 
I should rejoice now at this happy news ; 
And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy : — 
O me ! come near me ; now I am much ill. \_FalIs back, 

Glos. Comfort, your Majesty ! 

Clar. O my royal father ! 

1" Shrieve is an old form of sheriff. 



154 THE SECOND PART OF ACT iv 

West. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up. 

War. Be patient, princes ; you do know, these fits 
Are with his Highness very ordinary.^! 
Stand from him, give him air ; he'll straight be well. 

Clar. No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs : 
Th' incessant care and labour of his mind 
Hath wrought the mure,!^ that should confine it in. 
So thin, that life looks through, and will break out. 

Glos. The people fear me ; ^^ for they do observe 
Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of Nature : 
The seasons change their manners, as ^^ the year 
Had found some months asleep, and leap'd them over. 

Clar. The river hath thrice fiow'd,!^ no ebb between j 
And the old folk, time's doting chronicles'. 
Say it did so a Kttle time before 
That our great-grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died. 

War. Speak lower, princes, for the King recovers. 

Glos. This apoplex will certain be his end. 

King. I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence 
Into some other chamber : softly, pray. \_Exeunt, 

11 We have had Falstaff describing the King's disease as apoplexy. I 
believe he was in fact subject, in his later years, to what we call epileptic fits. 
But apoplexy was used in the Poet's time as a common term for both dis- 
eases ; at least by " laymen." 

12 Mure for wall is another of Shakespeare's Latanisms, It was not in 
frequent use by his contemporaries. — Wrought it thin is made it thin by 
gradual wearing. 

13 Fear is here used transitively, in the sense of make afraid. The 
Prince means that he is frightened at the strange freaks of Nature which 
the people observe, and which were thought to be ominous of some public 
calamity. — Unfathered heirs probably means monstrous births. 

14 The Poet often uses as with the force of as if 

15 Referring, of course, to the Thames. Three flowings of the tide in 
succession, without any ebb, would seem indeed a strange event ; neverthe- 
less it is said to have actually occurred about the time supposed in the text. 



KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 55 



Scene V. — Another Room in the Same. 

The King on a bed; Clarence, Gloster, Warwick, and 
others attending. 

King. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends ; 
Unless some dull i and favourable hand 
Will whisper music to my weary spirit. 

War. Call for the music in the other room. 

King. Set me the crown upon my pillow here. 

Clar. His eye is hollow, and he changes much. 

War. Less noise, less noise ! 

Enter Prince Henry. 

Prince. Who saw the Duke of Clarence ? 

Clar. I am here, brother, full of heaviness. 

Prince. How now ! rain within doors, and none abroad ! 
How doth the King ? 

Glos. Exceeding ill. 

Prince. Heard he 

The good news yet? tell't him. 

1 Dull and slow were synonymous. "Dullness, slowness ; tarditas, tardi- 
^ete. Somewhat dull ox slowe ; tardiusculus, tardelet ; " says Baret. And 
he has also the following : " Slow, dull, asleepe, drousie, astonied; heavie ; 
torpidus." It has always been thought that slow music induces sleep, Ariel 
enters playing solemn music to produce this effect, in The Tempest. The 
notion is not pecuhar to our Poet, as the following exquisite lines, from Wii 
Restored, 1658, may witness : 

O, lull me, lull me, charming air. 

My senses rock'd with wonder sweet ; 
Like snow on wool thy fallings are. 

Soft like a spirit are thy feet. 
Grief who need fear that hath an ear ? 
Down let him lie, and slumbering die, 

And change his soul for harmony. 



156 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

Glos. He alter'd much 

Upon the hearing it. 

Prince. If he be sick 

With joy, he will recover without physic. 

War. Not so much noise, my lords : — sweet Prince, 
speak low ; 
The King your father is disposed to sleep. 

Clar. Let us withdraw into the other room. 

War. Will't please your Grace to go along with us ? 

Prince. No : I will sit and watch here by the King. — 

\_Exeunt all but P. Henry. 
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow, 
Being so troublesome a bedfellow ? 
O poHsh'd perturbation ! golden care ! 
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide 
To many a watchful night ! — sleep with it now ! 
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet 
As he whose brow's with homely biggen^ bound 
Snores out the watch of night. — O majesty ! 
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit 
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day. 
That scalds with safety. — By his gates of breath 
There lies a downy feather which stirs not : 
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down 
Perforce must move. — My gracious lord ! my father ! — 
This sleep is sound indeed ; this is a sleep, 

2 A biggen was a head-band of coarse cloth ; so called because such g 
forehead-cloth was worn by the Beguines, an order of nuns. — The sense of 
the preceding line is, " Yet not half so sound nor half so deeply sweet." 
The Poet has various similar forms of expression. So Ben Jonson, in The 
Forest, xi., describing " true love " : " That falls like sleep on lovers, and 
combines the soft and sweetest minds in equal knots." Also in Heywood's 
Rape of Lucrece : " Only the grave and wisest of the land." 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 157 

That from this golden rigol^ hath divorced 
So many EngUsh kings. — Thy due from me 
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood, 
Which nature, love, and fihal tenderness, 
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously : 
My due from thee is this imperial crown. 
Which, as immediate from thy place and blood, 
Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits, — 

\_Futting it on his head. 
Which God shall guard : and, put the world's whole strength 
Into one giant arm, it shall not force 
This lineal honour from me : this from thee 
Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me. \_Eocit. 

King. Warwick ! Gloster ! Clarence ! 

Re-enter Warwick and the rest. 

Clar. Doth the King call? 

War. What would your Majesty? how fares your Grace? 

King. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords ? 

Clar. We left the Prince my brother here, my liege, 
Who undertook to sit and watch by you. 

King. The Prince of Wales ! Where is he ? let me see 
him : 
He is not here. 

War. This door is open ; he is gone this way. 

Glos. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd. 

King. Where is the crown ? who took it from my pillow ? 

War. When we withdrew, my Hege, we left it here. 

3 Rigol is circle; probably from the old Italian rigolo, a small wheel. 
Shakespeare has it again in Lucrece : 

About the mourning and congealed face 
Of that black blood, a watery rz'g'ol goes. 



158 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

King. The Prince hath ta'en it hence : go, seek him out. 
Is he so hasty, that he doth suppose 
My sleep my death ? — 
Find him, my Lord of Warwick ; chide him hither. — 

\_Exit Warwick. 
This part of his conjoins with my disease. 
And helps to end me. — See, sons, what things you are ! 
How quickly nature falls into revolt 
When gold becomes her object ! 
For this the foolish over-careful fathers 
Have broke their sleeps with thought. 
Their brains with care, their bones with industry ; 
For this they have engrossed and piled up 
The canker'd ^ heaps of strange-achieved gold ; 
For this they have been thoughtful to invest 
Their sons with arts and martial exercises : 
When, like the bee, culling from every flower 
The virtuous sweets, 

Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd, 
We bring it to the hive ; and, like the bees, 
Are murder' d for our pains. This bitter taste 
Yield his engrossments ^ to the ending father. — 

Re-enter Warwick. 

Now, where is he that will not stay so long 
Till his friend sickness hath determined ^ me? 

4 Canker dhereis rusted or tarnished. See The Tempest, page 127, note 41. 

5 Etigrossments is accumulations or piles ; as engrossed, a little before. 
Also, in the First Part, iii. 2, page 139 : " To engross up glorious deeds on 
my behalf." His refers to father ; the prose order being, " To the ending 
father his engrossments yield this bitter taste." 

•5 Determined is ended ; still used so in legal language. 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 59 

War. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room. 
Washing with kindly tears'^ his gentle cheeks ; 
With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow, 
That tyranny, which never quaff d but blood, 
Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife 
With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither. 

King. But wherefore did he take away the crown ? 

Re-enter Prince Henry. 

Lo, where he comes. — Come hither to me, Harry. — 
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone. 

\_Exeunt all but K. Hen. and P. Hen. 

Prince. I never thought to hear you speak again. 

King. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought : 
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee. 
Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair. 
That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honours 
Before thy hour be ripe ? O fooHsh youth ! 
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee. 
Stay but a little ; for my cloud of dignity 
Is held from falling with so weak a wind 
That it will quickly drop : my day is dim. 
Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours, 
Were thine without offence ; and at my death 
Thou hast seal'd up my expectation : 
Thy life did manifest thou loved'st me not, 
And thou wilt have me die assured of it. 
Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts, 
Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart. 
To stab at half an hour of my life. 

'^ "Kindly iQdirs" QxeXeoxs oi natural affection ; kindly being used in the 
primitive sense oi kind, which is nature. See Much Ado, page 92, note 2. 



l6o THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

What ! canst thou not forbear me half an hour? 

Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself; 

And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear, 

That thou art crowned, not that I am dead. 

Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse 

Be drops of balm® to sanctify thy head : 

Only compound me with forgotten dust ; 

Give that which gave thee life unto the worms. 

Pluck down my officers, break my decrees ; 

For now a time is come to mock at form : 

Harry the Fifth is crown'd : — up, vanity ! 

Down, royal state ! all you sage counsellors, hence ! 

And to the English Court assemble now, 

From every region, apes of idleness ! 

Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum : 

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance, 

Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit 

The oldest sins the newest kind of ways? 

Be happy, he will trouble you no more ; 

England shall double-gild his treble guilt ; 

England shall give him office, honour, might ; 

For the Fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks 

The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog 

Shall flesh his tooth in every innocent. 

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows ! 

When that my care could not withhold thy riots, 

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care ? 

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again. 

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants ! 

8 Balm here means the consecrated oil used in coronations. So in Rich- 
ard II., iii. 2 : " Not all the water in the rough-rude sea can wash the balm 
from an anointed king." 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. l6l 

Prince. [^Kneeling.'] O, pardon me, my liege ! but for my 
tears, 
The moist impediments unto my speech, 
I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke, 
Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard, 
The course of it so far. There is your crown ; 
And He that wears the crown immortally 
Long guard it yours ! If I affect it more 
Than as your honour and as your renown, 
Let me no more from this obedience rise, — 
Which my most inward-true and duteous spirit 
Teacheth, — this prostrate and exterior bending ! 
God witness with me, when I here came in, [Rising. 

And found no course of breath within your Majesty, 
How cold it struck my heart ! If I do feign, 
O, let me in my present wildness die. 
And never live to show th' incredulous world 
The noble change that I have purposed ! 
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, — 
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were, — 
I spake unto the crown as having sense, 
And thus upbraided it : The care on thee depending 
Hath fed upon the body of my father ; 
Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold : 
Other, less fine in carat, is more precious. 
Preserving life in medicine potable ; ^ 
But thou, most fine, most honour' d, most renowned. 
Hast eat thy bearer up. Thus, my most royal liege, 

9 It was long a prevailing opinion that a solution of gold had great me- 
dicinal virtues ; and that the incorruptibility of the metal might be commu- 
nicated to the body impregnated with it. Potable gold was one of the 
panacea of ancient quacks. 



1 62 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV 

Accusing it, I put it on my head, 

To try with it — as with an enemy 

That had before my face murder'd my father — 

The quarrel of a true inheritor. 

But, if it did infect my blood with joy, 

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride ; 

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine 

Did with the least affection of a welcome 

Give entertainment to the might of it ; 

Let God for ever keep it from my head. 

And make me as the poorest vassal is, 

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it ! 

Xmg. O my son, 
God put it in thy mind to take it hence. 
That thou mightst win the more thy father's love. 
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it ! 
Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed ; 
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel 
That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son, 
By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways 
I met this crown ; and I myself know well 
How troublesome it sat upon my head : 
To thee it shall descend with better quiet, 
Better opinion, better confirmation ; 
For all the soil of the achievement goes 
With me into the earth. It seem'd in me 
But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand ; 
And I had many living to upbraid 
My gain of it by their assistances ; 
Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed, 

ift Supposed here means, apparently, imagined, "the peace which we 
thought we had established." 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 163 

Wounding supposed ^^ peace : all these bold fears ^^ 

Thou see'st with peril I have answered ; 

For all my reign hath been but as a scene 

Acting that argument : and now my death 

Changes the mode ; for what in me was purchase,^^ 

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort ; 

So thou the garland wear'st successively.^^ 

Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do, 

Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green ; 

And all my foes, which thou must make thy friends. 

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out ; 

By whose fell working I was first advanced. 

And by whose power I well might lodge a fear 

To be again displaced : which to avoid, 

I cut some off, and had a purpose now 

To lead out many to the Holy Land, 

Lest rest and lying still might make them look 

Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry, 

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 

With foreign quarrels ; that action, hence borne out, 

May waste the memory of the former days. 

More would I, but my lungs are wasted so. 

That strength of speech is utterly denied me. 

How I came by the crown, O God forgive ; 

And grant it may with thee in true peace live ! 

11 Fears are objects of fear ; terrors. See First Part, page 73, note 9 

12 The mode is the state ox form of things. — Purchase is from the French 
pourchas, and was sometimes so spelled when used to signify the obtaining 
of lands or honours by any other means than by title or descent. The word 
was often used as a sort of euphemism for any thing acquired by unjust and 
indirect methods. See First Part, page 88, note 22. 

13 That is, by order of succession. Johnson observes that " every usurper 
snatches a claim of hereditary right as soon as he can." 



164 THE SECOND PART OF ACT IV. 

Prince. My gracious liege, 
You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me ; 
Then plain and right must my possession be : 
Which I with more than with a common pain 
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain. 

King. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster. 

Enter Lancaster, Warwick, Lords, and others. 

Lan. Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father ! 

King. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John ; 
But health, alack ; with youthful wings is flown 
From this bare wither'd trunk : upon thy sight. 
My worldly business makes a period. — 
Where is my Lord of Warwick ? 

Prince. My Lord of Warwick I 

King. Doth any name particular belong 
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon ? 

War. 'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord. 

King. Laud be to God ! even there my life must end. 
It hath been prophesied to me many years, 
I should not die but in Jerusalem; 
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land : 
But bear me to that chamber ; there I'll lie ; 
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. [Exeunt, 



SCENE 1. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 65 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Glostershire. A Hall in Shallow's House, 
Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Bardolph, and the Page. 

Shal. By cock and pie,i sir, you shall not away to-night. 
— What, Davy, I say ! 

Fal. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow. 

Shal. I will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; 
excuses shall not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall 
serve ; you shall not be excused. — Why, Davy ! 

Enter Davy. 

Davy. Here, sir. 

Shal. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, — let me see, Davy ; let 
me see, Davy ; let me see : — yea, marry, William cook,^ 
bid him come hither. — Sir John, you shall not be excused. 

Davy. Marry, sir, thus ; those precepts ^ cannot be 
served : and again, sir, shall we sow the headland with 
wheat ? 

Shal. With red wheat, Davy. But, for William cook : — • 
are there no young pigeons ? 

1 This appears to have been a common form of adjuration, not conveying, 
perhaps, any particular meaning. In The Plaine Man's Pathway to Heaven, 
by Arthur Dent, 1607, we have the following : " I know a man that will 
never swear but by cock and py, or mouse foot. I hope you will not say 
these be oaths. For he is as honest a man as ever brake bread : you shall 
not hear an oath come out of his mouth," 

2 William the cook ; servants being then often thus distinguished by the 
quality of their service. 

3 Precepts are warrants. Davy has almost as many employments as 
Scrub in The Beaux Stratas^em. 



1 66 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

Davy. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoe- 
ing and plough-irons. 

Shal. Let it be cast, and paid. — Sir John, you shall not 
be excused. 

Davy. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be 
had : and, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, 
about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair ? 

Shal. 'A shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple 
of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little 
tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. 

Davy. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir ? 

Shal. Yea, Davy. I will use him well : a friend i' the 
Court is better than a penny in purse. ^ Use his men well, 
Davy ; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite. 

Davy. No worse than they are backbitten, sir ; for they 
have marvellous foul linen. 

Shal. Well conceited,^ Davy : about thy business, Davy. 

Davy. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor 
of Wincot^ against Clement Perkes of the hill. 

Shal. There are many complaints, Davy, against that 
Visor : that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge. 

Davy. I grant your Worship that he is a knave, sir ; but 
yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some counte- 
nance at his friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to 
speak for himself, when a knave is not. I have served your 
Worship truly, sir, this eight years ; and, if I cannot once or 
twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, 



* " A friend in court is worth a penny in purse " is one of Camden's pro- 
verbial sentences. 

5 That is, well conceived, a happy conception, a fine stroke of wit. Conceit 
was always used in a good sense. 

6 Wilnecote, or Wincot, is a village in Warwickshire, r^ear Stratford. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 167 

I have but a very little credit with your Worship. The knave 
is mine honest friend, sir ; therefore, I beseech your Wor- 
ship, let him be countenanced.''' 

Shal. Go to ; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, 
Davy. \_Exit Davy.] — Where are you. Sir John? Come, 
come, come, off with your boots. — Give me your hand, 
Master Bardolph. 

Bard. I am glad to see your Worship. 

Shal. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bar- 
dolph : — \To the Page.] and welcome, my tall fellow. — ■ 
Come, Sir John. 

Fal. I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow. \_Exit 
Shallow.] — Bardolph, look to our horses. \_Exeunt Bar- 
dolph and Page]. — If I were saw'd into quantities,^ I 
should make four dozen of such bearded hermits'-staves as 
Master Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the sembla- 
ble coherence ^ of his men's spirits and his : they, by observ- 
ing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices ; he, by 
conversing with them, is turn'd into a justice-like serving- 
man : their spirits are so married in conjunction with the 
participation of society, that they flock together in concent,!^ 

7 This is no exaggerated picture of the course of justice in Shakespeare's 
time. Sir Nicholas Bacon, in a speech in Parliament, 1559, says, " Is it not 
a monstrous disguising to have a justice a maintainer, acquitting some for 
gain, enditing others for malice, bearing with him as his servant, overthrow- 
ing the other as his enemy ? " A member of the House of Commons, in 1601, 
says, " A justice of peace is a living creature, that for half a dozen chickens 
will dispense with a dozen of penal statutes." 

8 An odd use of quantities, but evidently meaning parts, pieces, or por- 
tions. A like instance occurs in The Taming, iv. 4 : " Away, thou rag, thou 
quantity, thou remnant." 

9 " Semblable coherence " is coherence from similarity, or union from 
resemblance; the same in sense as "birds of a feather flock together." 

10 Concent is unison or concord; quite distinct from consent. 



1 68 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V 

like so many wild-geese. If I had a suit to Master Shallow, 
I would humour his men with the imputation of being near 
their master : if to his men, I would curry with Master Shal- 
low, that no man could better command his servants. It is 
certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, 
as men take diseases, one of another : therefore let men 
take heed of their company. I will devise matter enough 
out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laugh- 
ter the wearing-out of six fashions, — which is four terms,ii 
or two actions, — and 'a shall laugh without i?itervallunts. 
O, it is much that a He with a slight oath, and a jest with a 
sad brow,!^ will do with a fellow that never had the ache in 
his shoulders ! O, you shall see him laugh till his face be 
like a wet cloak ill laid up ! 

Shal {Withinr^ Sir John ! 

FaL I come. Master Shallow ; I come, Master Shallow. 

\_Exit. 

Scene II. — Westminster. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter, severally, Warwick and the Chief-Justice. 

War. How now, my Lord Chief- Justice ! whither away? 
Ch. Just. How doth the King? 
War. Exceeding well ; his cares are now all ended. 
Ch. Just. I hope, not dead. 

11 These terms were the terms or sittings of the courts, by which the sea- 
'sons were then commonly reckoned. During the law terms, many people 

went up from the country into the city, to transact business, and learn the 
fashions, and do sundry other things. Some one has justly remarked upon 
the humour of making a spendthrift thus compute time by those periods 
which a hard-up debtor would be apt to remember. 

12 " A sad brow" is a serious countenance, or a look of earnest. So the 
Poet often uses sad. See Twelfth Night, page 96, note i. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 169 

War. He's walk'd the way of nature ; 

And, to our purposes, he Hves no more. 

Ch. Just. I would his Majesty had call'd me with him : 
The service that I truly did his life 
Hath left me open to all injuries. 

War. Indeed I think the young King loves you not. 

Ch. Just. I know he doth not ; and do arm myself 
To welcome the condition of the time ; 
Which cannot look more hideously upon me 
Than I have drawn it in my fantasy. 

War. Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry : 
O, that the living Harry had the temper 
Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen ! 
How many nobles then should hold their places, 
That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort ! 

Ch. Just. O God, I fear all will be overturn'd ! 

Enter Lancaster, Gloster, Clarence, Westmoreland, and 

others. 

Lan. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow. 

\ Good morrow, cousin. 
Clar. ) 

Lan. We meet like men that had forgot to speak. 

War. We do remember ; but our argument 
Is all too heavy to admit much talk. 

Lan. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy ! 

Ch. Just. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier ! 

Glos. O, good my lord, you've lost a friend indeed ; 
And I dare swear you borrow not that face 
Of seeming sorrow, — it is sure your own. 

Lan. Though no man be assured what grace to find, 
Vou stand in coldest expectation : 



I/O THE SECOND PART OF ACT V 

I am the sorrier ; would 'twere otherwise. 

Clar. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair ; 
Which swims against your stream of quality. 

Ch.Just. Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour, 
Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul ; 
And never shall you see that I will beg 
A ragged and forestall'd remission.^ 
If truth and upright innocency fail me, 
I'll to the King my master that is dead, 
And tell him who hath sent me after him. 

War. Here comes the Prince. 

Enter King Henry the Fifth, attended. 

Ch.Just. Good morrow ; and God save your Majesty ! 

King. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty, 
Sits not so easy on me as you think. — 
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear : 
This is the English, not the Turkish Court ; 
Not Amurath an Amurath^ succeeds, 

1 This passage has puzzled the commentators vastly. Ragged is doubt- 
less put for base, beggarly, ignominious. To forestall is, properly, to antici- 
pate : and I suspect the word is here used proleptically. The speaker's 
thought seems to be, that in his case any pardon will be ignominious, which 
is not free and unsolicited ; or the granting of which is preceded or antici- 
pated by a request. Thus a pardon begged or sued for would be base 
because forestalled. The Poet has many such proleptical forms of speech. 
See Ro7neo and Juliet, iii. 2, note i. And so Spenser, in The Faerie Queene, 
i- 3. 31. speaks of a " beaten marinere " as " long time having tand his tawney 
hide " ; that is, tanned his hide, and thus made it tawny. Mr, Joseph 
Crosby, however, writes me an explanation that may be still better : " ' You 
will never see that I will beg an ignominious pardon, — a remission for a 
deed that of itself forestalled any remission.' In other words, he means a 
pardon that every fair-minded man knows ought not to be begged for ; as 
the deed that was done forestalled its own remission, because it was so just 
and lawful, that it merited no punishment, but rather reward." 

2 Amurath III., Emperor of the Turks, died in 1595: his secondson. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I^I 

But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers, 
For, by my faith, it very well becomes you : 
Sorrow so royally in you appears. 
That I will deeply put the fashion on. 
And wear it in my heart. Why, then be sad ; 
But entertain no more of it, good brothers, 
Than a joint burden laid upon us all 
For me, by Heaven, I bid you be assured, 
I'll be your father and your brother too ; 
Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares : 
Yet weep that Harry's dead ; and so will I ; 
But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears. 
By number, into hours of happiness. 

Clar. -^ 

Lan. y We hope no other from your Majesty. 

King. You all look strangely on me : — and you most ; 

\_To the Chief-Justice. 
You are, I think, assured I love you not. 

Ch. Just. I am assured, if I be measured rightly. 
Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me. 

King. No ! 
How might a prince of my great hopes forget 
So great indignities you laid upon me ? 
What ! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison 
Th' immediate heir of England ! Was this easy? 
May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten ? 

Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father ; 
The image of his power lay then in me : 

Amurath, who succeeded him, had all his brothers strangled at a feast, ta 
which he invited them, while yet ignorant of their father's death. It is highly 
probable that Shakespeare alludes to this transaction. 



1/2 THE S*ECOND PART OF ACT V. 

And, in th' administration of his law, 

Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth. 

Your Highness pleased to forget my place, 

The majesty and power of law and justice. 

The image of the King whom I presented,^ 

And struck me in my very seat of judgment ; 

Whereon, as an offender to your father, 

I gave bold way to my authority, 

And did commit you."* If the deed were ill. 

Be you contented, wearing now the garland. 

To have a son set your decrees at nought ; 

To pluck down justice from your awful bench ; 

To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword 

That guards the peace and safety of your person ; 

Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image. 

And mock your workings in a second body. 

Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours : 

Be now the father, and propose a son ; 

Hear your own dignity so much profaned. 

See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted, 

Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd ; 

And then imagine me taking your part. 

And, in your power, so silencing your son. 

After this cold considerance, sentence me ; 

And, as you are a king, speak in your state, 

3 Presented for represented. The Poet has it repeatedly so. 

4 While Sir William Gascoigne was at the bar, Henry of Bolingbroke 
was his client, and appointed him his attorney to sue out his livery in the 
Court of Wards ; but Richard II. defeated his purpose. When Bolingbroke 
became Henry IV. he appointed Gascoigne chief justice. In that station he 
acquired the character of a learned, upright, wise, and intrepid judge. 
The story of his committing the Prince is told by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his 
book entitled The Gouvernour ; but Shakespeare followed the Chronicles. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 173 

What I have done that misbecame my place, 
My person, or my Hege's sovereignty. 

King, You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well ; 
Therefore still bear the balance and the sword ; 
And I do wish your honours may increase. 
Till you do live to see a son of mine 
Offend you, and obey you, as I did. 
So shall I live to speak my father's words : 
Happy am /, that have a 7na7i so bold 
That dares do justice on my proper son; 
And not less happy, having such a son 
That would deliver up his greatness so 
Into the hands of justice. You did commit me : 
For which, I do commit into your hand 
Th' unstained sword that you have used to bear ; 
With this remembrance, that you use the same 
With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit 
As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand. 
You shall be as a father to my youth : 
My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear ; 
And I will stoop and humble my intents 
To your well-practised wise directions.^ — 

5 This retaining of Gascoigne in office has been commonly set down as a 
breach of history, justifiable, perhaps, dramatically, but untrue in point of 
fact, he having died before the King. It has been found, however, that 
among the persons summoned to the first Parliament of Henry V. was " Sir 
William Gascoigne, Knight, Chief Justice of our Lord the King." A royal 
warrant has also come to light, dated November 28, 1414, granting to " our 
dear and well-beloved William Gascoigne, Knt., an allowance, during the 
term of his natural life, of four bucks and four does every year out of our 
forest of Pontifract." And Mr. Tyler has put the matter beyond question 
by discovering his last will and testament, which was made December 15, 
1419. From all which Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chief Justices, 
concludes it certain that he did survive Henry IV., who died March 20, 1413, 



174 THE SECOND PART OF ACT 

And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you : 

My father is gone wild into his grave,^ 

For in his tomb lie my affections ; 

And with his spirit sadly I survive. 

To mock the expectation of the world, 

To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out 

Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down 

After my seeming. The tide of blood in me 

Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now : 

Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea, 

Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,' 

And flow henceforth in formal majesty. 

Now call we our High Court of Parliament : 

And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel, 

That the great body of our State may go 

In equal rank with the best-govern'd nation ; 

That war, or peace, or both at once, may be 

As things acquainted and familiar to us ; — 

In which you, father, shall have foremost hand. — 

[To the Chief- Justice. 
Our coronation done, we will accite,^ 
As I before remember'd, all our State : 
And, God consigning to my good intents, 



and was reappointed to the King's Bench by Henry V. So that we can 
take the Poet's lesson of magnanimity without any abatement on the score 
of history. 

6 The meaning is, My wild dispositions have ceased on ray father's death, 
and are now buried in his tomb. 

7 "The state of floods" is the ocean; so called, probably because it is 
the chief of floods, and comprehends the majesty of all the others. 

8 To accite here means to call or summon. In ii. 2, of this play, it is used 
in the sense of move or impel: "And what accites your most worshipful 
thought to think so ? " 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1/5 

No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say, 

God shorten Harry's happy Hfe one day ! \^Exeunt. 



Scene III. — Glostershire. The Garden of Shallow's 
House. 

Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Bardolph, the Page, 
and Davy. 

Shal. Nay, you shall see mine orchard, where, in an 
arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, 
with a dish of caraways,^ and so forth: — come, cousin Si- 
lence : — and then to bed. 

Fal. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a 
rich. 

Shal. Barren, barren, barren ; beggars all, beggars all. Sir 
John : marry, good air. — Spread, Davy ; spread, Davy : well 
said,2 Davy. 

Fal. This Davy serves you for good uses ; he is your 
serving-man and your husband. ^ 

Shal. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet. 
Sir John: — by the Mass, I have drunk too much sack at 
supper : — a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down : — 
come, cousin. 

Sit. Ah sirrah ! quoth-a, — we shall 

[Sings.] Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, 
And praise God for the merry year ; 

^ Caraway seeds used to be much eaten with apples as a carminative, to 
reUeve the flatulency generated by the fruit. Cogan's Haven of Health, 
1594, strongly recommends them for that purpose. 

2 "Well jaz<f " is here used for "well doney — Spread has reference to 
making ready for eating and drinking. 

3 Meaning " your husbandwa/z " / the one who husbands your affairs. 



176 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

WJien flesh is cheap and females dear. 
And lusty lads roam here and there 

So merrily, 
And ever-among^ so merrily. 

Fal. There's a merry heart ! — Good Master Silence, I'll 
give you a health for that anon. 

Shal. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy. 

Davy. Sweet sir, sit ; I'll be with you anon ; most sweet 
sir, sit. — Master page, good master page, sit. [Bard, and 
Page sit at another table.'] — Proface !^ What you want in 
meat, we'll have in drink : but you must bear ; the heart's 
all.6 [Exit. 

Shal. Be merry, Master Bardolph ; — and, my little soldier 
there, be merry. 

Sil. [Sings.] Be merry, be merry, my wife's as all; 
For women are shrews, both short and tall: 
^Tis merry in hall when beards wag all. 

And welcome merry Shrove-tide. 
Be merry, be merry, &c. 

Fal. I did not think Master Silence had been a man of 
this mettle. 

Sil. Who, I ? I have been merry twice and once ere now. 

4 Ever-among is an ancient idiomatic phrase, used by Chaucer and others. 
It means about the same as always. — No traces have been found of the old 
songs with which Silence overflows so eloquently in his mellowness. 

5 A phrase of welcome, equivalent to " Much good may it do you." It is 
thus explained by old Heywood : " Reader, reade this thus : for preface, 
pro/ace, much good may it do you." It occurs also in Cavendish's Life of 

Wolsey ; " Before the second course, my Lord Cardinal came in among 
them, booted and spurred, all suddenly, and bade them pro/ace." 

6 That is, you must put up with plain fare, and take the will for the deed 
in regard to better. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 7/ 

Re-enter Davy. 

Davy. There's a dish of leather-coats "^ for you. 

{Setting them before Bardolph. 

Shal. Davy, — 

Davy. Your Worship? — \To Bard.] I'll be with you 
straight. — A cup of wine, sir ? 

Sil. [Sings.] A cup of wine thafs brisk and fine, 
And drink unto the leman ^ mine ; 
And a merry heart lives long-a. 

Fal. Well said. Master Silence. 

Sil. And we shall be merry : now comes in the sweet o' 
the night. 

Fal. Health and long life to you, Master Silence ! 

Sil. [Sings.] Fill the cup, and let it come ; 

P II pledge you a mile to the bottom. 

Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome : if thou wantest any 
thing, and wilt not call, beshrewthy heart. — {To the Page.] 
Welcome, my little tiny thief, and welcome indeed too. — I'll 
drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes about 
London. 

Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. 

Bard. An I might see you there, Davy, — 

Shal. By the Mass, you'll crack a quart together, ha ! 
will you not Master Bardolph? 

Bard. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot. 

Shal. By God's liggens, I thank thee : the knave will 
stick by thee, I can assure thee that : 'a will not out ; he is 
true bred.9 

'' Apples commonly called russetines. 

8 Leman is sweetheart or tnistress. See Twelfth Night, page 60, note 6. 

® These are sportsman's phrases aoplied to hounds. " He will not out " 



178 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir. 

Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing ; be merry. 
— \Knocking within.'] Look who's at door there, ho ! who 
knocks ? \_Exit Davy. 

Fal. Why, now you have done me right. 

\_To Silence, who has Just drunk a bumper. 

Sil. [Sings.] Do me right, and dub me knight, 
Sa^mingo.^^ 
Is't not so? 
Fal. 'Tis so. 
Sil. Is't so ? Why, then say an old man can do somewhat. 

Re-enter Davy. 

Davy. An't please your Worship, there's one Pistol come 
from the Court with news. 

Fal. From the Court ! let him come in. — 

Enter Pistol. 
How now, Pistol ! 

Pist. Sir John, God save you ! 

means " he will not fail you," or " he will be true to you." Used of hounds 
when they hunt in a cry, that is, pursue the game in concert, and stick by 
each other. See First Part, page 86, note 17. 

1*^ To do a man right and to do him reason were formerly the usual ex- 
pressions in pledging healths; he who drank a bumper expected that a 
bumper should be drunk to his toast. To this Bishop Hall alludes in his 
Quo Vadis : " Those formes of ceretnonious quaffing, in which men have 
learned to make gods of others and beasts of themselves ; and lose the rea- 
son, whiles they pretend to do reason." — He who drank a bumper on his 
knees to the health of his mistress was dubbed a knight for the evening. — 
In Rowland's Epigrams, 1600, Monsieur Domingo is celebrated as a toper. 
Whether the change to Sa'mingo was a blunder of Silence in his cups, or 
was a real contraction of San Domingo, is uncertain. Why St. Dominick 
should be the patron of topers does not appear. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 179 

Fal. What wind blew you hither. Pistol ? 

Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. 
Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in the 
realm. 

Sil. By'r Lady, I think 'a be, but goodman Puff of Bar- 
son.ii 

Pist. Puff! 

Puffin thy teeth, most recreant coward base ! 

Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend. 
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee ; 
And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys, 
And golden times, and happy news of price. 

Fal. I pray thee, now, deliver them like a man of this 
world. 

Pist. A foutrai^ for the world and worldlings base ! 
I speak of Africa and golden joys. 

Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news ? 
Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof. 

Sil. [Sings.] And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. 

Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons pi^ 
And shall good news be baffled ? 
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap. 

Shal. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding. 



11 That is, the greatest man except goodman Puff. The exceptive but, as 
it is called; a contraction oibe out. — Barson, or Barston, is the name of a 
village in Warwickshire. 

12 Foutra appears to have been a slang expression of scorn. 

13 Helicons ior poets ; mount Helicon in Boeotia being the special haunt 
of the Muses and sacred to Apollo, the god of poetical inspiration. There 
was the famous fountain of Hippocrene, whence those divine old girls, the 
Muses, imbibed their fine raptures. — Pistol has got his memory so stored 
with scraps of plays and ballads, that he imagines himself a poet, or a 
Heliconian. 



l80 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

Pist. Why, then lament therefore. 

Shal, Give me pardon, sir : if, sir, you come with news 
from the Court, I take it there's but two ways, either to utter 
them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the King, in 
some authority. 

Pist. Under which king, besonianpi'* speak or die. 

Shal. Under King Harry. 

Pist. Harry the Fourth? or Fifth? 

Shal. Harry the Fourth. 

Pist. A foutra for thine office ! — 

Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king ; 
Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth : 
When Pistol lies, do this ; and fig me,i^ Hke 
The bragging Spaniard. 

FaL What, is the old King dead ? 

14 The meaning of besonian, here, has been a good deal discussed. The 
word is of Italian origin, and properly signifies a needy fellow or a beggar; 
but came to be used in the stronger sense oi scoundrel. The best explanation 
of Pistol's meaning that I have met with is in The Edinburgh Review, July, 
1869 : " He uses besonian simply as a thrasonical phrase of martial contempt 
for the bucolic mind, an intimation that Shallow, Justice of the Peace though 
he may be, and ' under the King in some authority,' is after all no better 
than a peasant. The word is used by Nash, and other contemporary poets 
and dramatists, in exactly the same sense, to designate the lower class of 
labourers, boors, and rustics." And the writer sustains this by the follow- 
ing quotation from Markham's work on English Husbandmen ; " First, 
therefore, let every man understand, that this title of Husbandman is not 
tyed onely to the ordinarie tillers of the earth, such as we call husbandmen ; 
in France, peasants ; in Spaine, besonyans, and generall the clout-shoo : no, 
they are creatures of a better creation," &c. 

15 An expression of contempt or insult by putting the thumb between the 
tore and middle finger, and forming a coarse representation of a disease to 
which the name oificus has always been given. Pistol seems to accompany 
the phrase with an appropriate gesture. In explaining the higas dar of the 
Spaniards, Minshew says, after describing it, " a manner as they use in Eng- 
land to bore the nose with the finger, as in disgraced 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. l8l 

Pist. As nail in door : i^ the things I speak are just. 

Fal. Away, Bardolph ! saddle my horse. — Master Robert 
Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. — 
Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities. 

Bard. O joyful day ! — 
I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. 

Pist. What, I do bring good news ? 

Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. — Master Shallow, my 
Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt ; I am Fortune's steward. 
Get on thy boots : we'll ride all night. — O sweet Pistol ! — 
Away, Bardolph ! \^Exit Bard.] — Come, Pistol, utter more 
to me ; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good. — 
Boot, boot, Master Shallow : I know the young King is sick 
for me. Let us take any man's horses ; the laws of England 
are at my commandment. Blessed are they that have been 
my friends ; and woe to my Lord Chief- Justice ! 

Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also ! 
Where is the life that late I led? say they : 
Why, here it is ; welcome this pleasant day ! \_Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — London. A Street. 

Enter Beadles, dragging in the Hostess and Doll Tear- 
sheet. 

Host. No, thou arrant knave ; I would to God that 1 
might die, that I might have thee hang'd : thou hast drawn 
my shoulder out of joint. 

I Bead. The constables have deliver'd her over to me ; 

16 The door nail is the nail in ancient doors on which the knocker 
strikes. It is therefore used as a comparison for one who has fallen under 
such a death as reiterated strokes on the head would produce. 



1 82 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her : 
there hath been a man or two lately kill'd about her. 

Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook,i you he. Come on, thou damn'd 
tripe-visaged rascal, thou paper-faced villain. 

Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come ! he would 
make this a bloody day to somebody. 

I Bead. Come, I charge you both go with me ; for the 
man is dead that you and Pistol beat among you. 

Dol, I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer,^ I will 
have you as soundly swinged for this ; you blue-bottle rogue,^ 
you filthy famish'd correctioner, if you be not swinged, I'll 
forswear half-kirtles."* 

I Bead. Come, come, you she knight- errant, come. 

Host. O God, that right should thus overcome might ! 
Well, of sufferance comes ease, 

Dol. Come, you rogue, come ; bring me to a justice. 

Host. Ay, come, you starved bloodhound. 

Dol. Goodman Death, goodman Bones ! 

Host. Thou atomy,^ thou ! 

Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal. 

I Bead. Very well. \Exeunt, 

1 Nut-hook was a term of reproach for a bailiff or catchpole. Cleveland 
says of a committee-man : " He is the devil's nut-hook; the sign with him 
is always in the clutches." 

2 Alluding, probably, to the cap worn by the Beadle ; the official cap. 

3 Beadles usually wore a blue livery. 

4 A half-kirtle was a kind of apron ox fore part of the dress of a woman. 

5 Atomy is a Quicklvism for anatomy. 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 83 

Scene V. — A public Place near Westminster Abbey, 
Enter three Grooms, strewing rushes, 

1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 

2 Groo7n. The trumpets have sounded twice. 

J Groom. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the 
coronation. 

I Groom. Dispatch, dispatch. \_Exeunt, 

Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page. 

Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will 
make the King do you grace : I will leer upon him as 'a 
comes by ; and do but mark the countenance that he will 
give me. 

Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. 

Fal. Come here. Pistol ; stand behind me ! — \_To Shal- 
low.] O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I 
would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. 
But 'tis no matter ; this poor show doth better : this doth 
infer the zeal I had to see him ; — 

Shal. It doth so. 

Fal. — it shows my earnestness of affection, — 

Shal. It doth so. 

Fal. — my devotion ; — 

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth. 

Fal. — as it were, to ride day and night ; and not to delib- 
erate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me ; — 

Shal. It is most certain. 

Fal. — but to stand stained with travel, and sweating with 
desire to see him ; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs 
else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but 
to see hinL 



184 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V, 

Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'tis all in 
every part. 

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed. 

Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, 
And make thee rage. 

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts 
Is in base durance and contagious pris^ix ; 
Haled thither 

By most mechanical and dirty hand : 
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake, 
For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth. 

Fal. I will deliver her. 

\_Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. 

Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. 

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief-Justice among them. 

Fal. God save thy Grace, King Hal ! my royal Hal ! 

Pist. The Heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp ^ 
of fame ! 

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy ! 

King. My Lord Chief-Justice, speak to that vain man. 

Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you 
speak ? 

Fal. My King ! my Jove ! I speak to thee, my heart ! 

King. I know thee not, old man : fall to thy prayers ; 
How ill white hairs become a Fool and jester ! 
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man. 
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane ; 

1 Imp literally means a graff, scion, or shoot of a tree ; hence formerly 
used in a good sense for offspring or child. It occurs repeatedly so in The 
Faerie Queene. How it came to be used only for a wicked or mischievous 
being, a child of the Devil, does not appear. 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 85 

But, being awake, I do despise my dream. 

Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace ; 

Leave gormandizing ; know the grave doth gape 

For thee thrice wider than for other men. 

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest : 

Presume not that I am the thing I was ; 

For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, 

That I have turn'd away my former self; 

So will I those that kept me company. 

When thou dost hear I am as I have been, 

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast, 

The tutor and the feeder of my riots : 

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, — 

x\s I have done the rest of my misleaders, — 

Not to come near our person by ten mile. 

For competence of life I will allow you, 

That lack of means enforce you not to evil : 

And, as we hear you do reform yourselves. 

We will, according to your strength and qualities, 

Give you advancement.^ — Be't your charge, my lord, 

To see perform'd the tenour of our word. — 

Set on. \_Exeunt the King and his Train, 

Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. 

Shal. Yea, marry. Sir John ; which I beseech you to let 
me have home with me. 

2 The King's treatment of his old makesport, when he has no longer any 
use or time for his delectations, has been censured by several critics. In 
reference to which censure Johnson rightly observes, " If it be considered 
that the fat knight has never uttered one sentiment of generosity, and, with 
all his powers of exciting mirth, he has nothing in him that can be esteemed, 
no great pain will be suffered from the reflection that he is compelled to live 
honestly, and maintained by the King, with a promise of advancement when 
he shall deserve it." 



1 86 THE SECOND PART OF ACT V. 

FaL That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you 
grieve at this ; I shall be sent for in private to him : look you, 
he must seem thus to the world : fear not your advancement ; 
I will be the man yet that shall make you great. 

Shal. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your 
doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good 
Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. 

FaL Sir, I will be as good as my word : this that you 
heard was but a colour. 

ShaL A colour, I fear, that you will die in. Sir John. 

FaL Fear no colours : go with me to dinner : — come, 
Lieutenant Pistol ; — come Bardolph : — I shall be sent for 
soon at 3 night. 

Re-enter Lancaster, the Chief- Justice, Officers, 6^^. 

Ch, Just Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet ; ^ 
Take all his company along with him. 

FaL My lord, my lord, — 

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak : I will hear you soon. — 
Take them away. 

Pist. Sefortuna mi tormenta, lo sperare mi contenta. 

\_Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bar- 
dolph, and Page, with Officers. 

Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the King's : 
He hath intent his wonted followers 

3 Soon at is a phrase used several times by the Poet. The meaning ap- 
pears to be merely as soon as, or about. 

4 The Fleet was one of the old prisons in London. So Wordsworth, in 
his Prologue to Peter Bell : 

As well might Peter, in the Fleet, 
Have been fast bound, a begging debtor: 
He travell'd here, he travell'd there ; 
But not the value of a hair 
Was heart or head the better. 



EPILOGUE. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 8/ 

Shall all be very well provided for ; 

But all are banish'd till their conversations ^ 

Appear more wise and modest to the world. 

Ch.Just. And so they are. 

Lan. The King hath call'd his Parliament, my lord. 

Ch.Just. He hath. 

Lan. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire. 
We bear our civil swords and native fire 
As far as France : I heard a bird so sing, 
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the King. 
Come, will you hence ? \Exeunt. 

EPILOGUE. 

Spoken by a Dancer. 

First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear 
is, your displeasure ; my curtsy, my duty ; and my speech, 
to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, 
you undo me : for what I have to say is of mine own mak- 
ing ; and what indeed I shall say will, I doubt,i prove mine 
own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture : 
Be it known to you, — as it is very well, — I was lately here 
in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, 
and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay 
you with this ; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily 
home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I 
promised you I would be, and here I commit my body to 
your mercies : bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, 
as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. 

5 Conversation in Shakespeare's time had the general meaning of man^ 
ners or behaviour. 

1 Doubt in the sense oifear or suspect. Often so. 



1 88 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. EPILOGUE. 

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you 
command me to use my legs ? and yet that were but light 
payment, — to dance out of your debt. But a good con- 
science will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. 
All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me : if the gentle- 
men will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the 
gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an 
assembly. 

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much 
cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue the 
story, with Sir John in it,'^ and make you merry with fair 
Catharine of France : where, for any thing I know, Falstaff 
shall die of a sweat, unless already 'a be kill'd with your hard 
opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the 
man. My tongue is weary ; when my legs are too, I will bid 
you good night; and so kneel down before you; — but, 
indeed, to pray for the Queen.^ 

2 This promise touching FalstafF, for some cause or other, was not car- 
ried out : Sir John does not once appear in the play of King Henry V. 
The Poet probably judged, as indeed he well might, that FalstafFs dramatic 
office and mission were fairly at an end when his connection with Prince 
Henry was broken off; the purpose of the character being to explain the 
Prince's wild and riotous courses. 

3 Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the King or 
Queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of 
modern English play bills. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Induction. 

Page 55. This have I rumour'' d through the pleasant towns 

Between that royal field of Shrewesbury 

And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone. — The old copies 
have *^ peasant townes," and also hole instead of hold. Pleasant is the 
correction made in Collier's second folio ; and Dyce says it had oc- 
curred to him long ago ; at the same time observing, " One may won- 
der why Rumour should mention only * the peasant towns,' (a most 
strange expression,) as if so busy a personage, in the long journey 
from Shrewesbury to Warkworth, had failed to ' call in at the more 
important places.' " 

Act I., Scene i. 

P. 61. That arrows fly not swifter toward their aim 
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety. 
Fly from the field. — So Walker. The old text has " arrowes 
fled not." 

P. 61. Then was the noble Worcester 

Too soon to' en prisoner. — The old copies have that instead of 
the. Probably the error crept in from thai occurring just below. Cor- 
rected by Hanmer. 



P. 66. He may keep it still as a face-royal. — So the second folio. 
The earlier editions have at instead of as. 

P. 67. And if a man is thorough with them in honest taking-up, 
&c. — The old copies have through instead of thorough. Still I am 
not altogether certain that the change ought to be admitted, as in fact 
the two forms were often used indiscriminately. Corrected by Pope. 



190 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

P. 70. Fal. Very well, my lord, very well; rather, an'' t please you^ 
it is the disease of not listening, &c. — Here the old copies have the 
prefix ''OldP instead of ''Fair Doubtless "C/^." is a relic of the 
original naming of Falstafif, the change not having been marked in 
that place. See Introduction to the First Part. 

P. 72. Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times. — 
The old copies have costermonger s. Corrected by Capell. 

P. 74. / were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scour'' d 
to death zvith perpetual motion. — Not in the folio. The quarto reads 
" eaten to death with a rust." The a seems decidedly out of place 
here, as much so as it would before " perpetual motion." 

Act I., Scene 3. 

P. 75. And our supplies lie largely in the hope 

Of great Northuj?iberland. — The old copies have live instead 
of lie. The correction is Walker's, who adduces various instances of 
lie and live confounded. 

P. 76. Yes, in this present quality of war : 

Indeed, the instant act and cause on foot 

Lives so in hope, as in an early Spring 

IVe see th^ appearing buds ; &c. — The first twenty lines of this 
speech are wanting in the quarto ; and the folio gives them in a very 
unsatisfactory state. So, in the lines here quoted, the folio reads thus : 

Yes, y^this present quality of warre, 
Indeed the instant action : a cause on foot. 
Lives so in hope, &c. 

The corrections given in the text are made in Collier's second folio ; 
which, however, had been anticipated in regard to the first — in foi 
if — by Johnson. See foot-note 4. 

P. 77. What do we then but draw anew the model 
In fewer offices, or at last desist 

To build at all ? Much more, in this great work, — 
Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I9I 

And set another up, — should we survey 

The plot of situation and the model. 

Consent upon a sure foundation. 

Question surveyors, know our ozvn estate. 

How able such a work to undergo. 

And weigh against his opposite ; or else 

We fortify on paper and in figures, &c, — Here, again, in the 
second of these Unes, the folio has least instead of last ; in the tenth, 
To instead of And ; and, in the last, " in paper " instead of " on 
paper." The first correction was made by Capell, and the second was 
proposed by Staunton, where Capell had printed " How weigh," and 
both the first and the third are found in Collier's second folio; which 
also inserts a whole line between the ninth and tenth, thus : " A care- 
ful leader sums what force he brings." In the sixth line, also. Collier's 
second folio has " The plot, the situation, and the model," and, in the 
seventh. Consult instead of Consent ; the latter of which I suspect to 
be right ; perhaps both. 

P. 78. If he should do so. 

To French and Welsh he leaves his back unarm' d. 
They baying him at the heels. — So the quarto, except that it 
lacks To, which was supplied by Capell. The folio gives the passage 

thus : 

He leaves his backe unarin'd, the French and Welsh 
Baying him at the heels. 

Act II., Scene i. 

P. 80. Master Fang, have you entered the exion? — Here the old 
copies have action instead of exion ; but they afterwards show that the 
latter is Mrs. Quickly's habitual form of the word, or her idiom. 

P. 81. A hundred mark is a long score for a poor lone woman to 
bear. — So Collier's second folio. Instead of score, the old copies have 
one, for which Theobald substituted loan. In the old text, one would 
naturally refer to mark ; so that the sense would be, " A hundred 
mark is a long mark for a poor," &c.; with an intended quibble on 
the two senses of mark. But I think, with Lettsom, that, if the Hostess 



192 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

had meant a quibble, she would have repeated mark. Of course score. 
refers to the old way of keeping accounts by marking or scoring the 
items down with chalk, or with notches cut in a stick. 



Act II., Scene 2. 

P. 88. And God knows whether those that bawl out of the ruins of 
thy linen shall inherit His kingdom. — So Pope. The old copies read 
" those that bawl out the ruins." Capell inserted /rc^-^z, which gives 
the same sense as of. Still I am not absolutely certain that either in- 
sertion is right ; since " bawl out the ruins " might mean " wear out 
the ruins in their bawling age." See foot-note 3. 

P. 91. The answer is as ready as a borrower's cap. — The old 
copies have " borrowed cap." Corrected by Warburton. 

P. 91. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity. — Instead 
of Roman, the old copies have Romanes and Romaines, which cannot 
be right, as the reference is, undoubtedly, to Julius Csesar. The cor- 
rection is Warburton's. See foot-note 9. 

Act II., Scene 3. 

P. 94. When your own Percy, when Tny heart's dear Harry, 
Threw 7nany a 7iorthward look, to see his father 
Bring tip his powers ; but he did long in vain. — " My hearfs 
dear " is the reading of the quarto: the folio has " my /^^^r/-dear "; 
upon which Lettsom remarks, " This compound is a Germanism : it 
does not appear to me in Shakespeare's style." — In the third line, 
Theobald changed long to look, and the change was approved by 
Heath. Perhaps rightly. 

Act II., Scene 4. 

P. loi. Feel, mistress, how I shake ; look you, I warrant you. 

Doll. So you do. Hostess. — The old copies have masters 
instead of mistress. As Falstaff is the only 7nan present, masters can- 
not well be right : moreover Doll's reply infers the preceding words to 
be addressed to her. The correction was proposed by Keightley. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I93 

P. 102. Down, down, dogs ! down, faitors ! — So Capell. The quarto 
^va&faters, which is probably only another spelling of faitors. The 
folio \i.'a.% fates. 

P. 103. Se fortuna mi tormenta, lo sperare mi contenta. — The old 
copies have " Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento," except in 
the last word, where the folio has contente. The words are of course 
supposed to be the motto inscribed on Pistol's sword. As this was 
doubtless a Toledo blade, the motto would naturally be in Spanish ; 
and such it is in the text. Pistol, it is true, might blunder in the read- 
ing or repeating of it, as he does in Cannibals and Trojan Greeks ; 
but there would be no humour or character in such a blunder here. 
So I concur with Dyce in giving a corrected form of the motto both in 
this place, and again near the close of the fifth Act. 

P. 104. Thrust me down stairs ! Know we not Galloway nags ? 
— So Lettsom. The old copies have him instead of me. Pistol would 
naturally change the pronoun, in repeating Doll's words, and him 
might easily creep in by mistake from the line before. 

P. 105. Thou whoreson little Bartholom^ew-iidQ boar-pig. — The old 
text has "little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig." There is no apparent 
reason why the epithet tidy should be thus applied to Falstaff. The 
word does not occur elsewhere in Shakespeare. Hanmer reads tiny ; 
but that gives a rather vapid touch of irony. The reading in the text 
is Walker's, and it gives a sense that fits perfectly ; as Bartholomew- 
tide, with its great fair, its frolic and feasting and roast pigs, was a 
high time, especially to such persons as Doll Tearsheet. See foot- 
note 30. 

P. 1 10. For one of them, she is in Hell already, and burns, poor 
soul ! — " This," says Johnson, " is Sir Thomas Hanmer's reading. 
Undoubtedly right." The old text reads " and burns poor souls?' 
Some recent editors have returned to the old reading ; I cannot 
imagine why. 

P. 1 1 1 . O, run, Doll, run ; run, good Doll ! — So the scene ends in 
the folio. The quarto adds " come, shee comes blubberd, yea, will 
you come, Doll?" Here, no doubt, as Dyce supposes, "she comes 



194 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

blubber'd " was meant as a stage-direction, but got printed by mistake 
as a part of the text. But it seems to me nowise unlikely that the 
Poet concluded to strike out the whole, as it is indeed no addition, 
except of words. 

Act III., Scene i. 

P. 112. Than in the perfumed chambers of the great. 

Under their canopies of costly state. — The old copies have the 
instead of their, which is Lettsom's correction. Of course their refers 
to the great. Collier's second folio reads " Under high canopies." 

P. 113. Who take the ruffian billows by the top. 

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deafening cla?nour in the slippery shrouds. — So Pope 
and Collier's second folio. The old text has clouds instead of shrouds. 
How clouds can be spoken of as slippery, is not very apparent. 

P, 113. Then, happy lowly clown ! 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. — Instead of lowly 
clown, the old copies have Lowe, lye down. The correction in the 
text is Warburton's ; and Gilbert Wakefield, in a note on Lucretius, 
tells us the same had occurred to him. Johnson adopted lowly clown. It 
is evident enough that a transcriber or printer might easily mistake cl 
for d, and instances of such mistake are not wanting. 

P. 115. The time will come, thus did he follow it. 

The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head. 
Shall break into corruption. — In the first of these lines the 
old copies have shall instead of will. It is true, the two words were 
often used indiscriminately ; but I can hardly think that to be the case 
here. Johnson's correction. 

P. 115. Such things become the hatch and brood of time ; 

And, by the necessary form ^these. 

King Richard might create a perfect guess, &c. — So Capell. 
The old copies have this instead of these. The latter naturally refers 
to things ; but I cannot find what this should refer to. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I95 



Act III., Scene 2. 

P. 118. And carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen 
and a half that it would have done a maizes heart good to see. — So the 
quarto. The folio has " forehand shaft at fourteen," &c. The words 
" at fourteen and fourteen and a half " do not rightly express distance 
of flight ; while carried shows such to be the meaning intended. 

P. 120, By my troth, you like well. — So the quarto. The folio has 
"you looke well." See foot-note 13. 

P. 121. For the others, Sir John: — let me see ; &c. — The old 
copies have other instead of others. The dialogue following shows 
others to be right. 

P. 121. It is often so indeed ; but not much of the father's substance. 
— So Capell. The quarto has ^^ but much"; the foho, '■^ but not of 
the father's substance." 

P. 125. For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service. — 
Tyrwhitt proposed to read " stay at home still ; you are past service." 
This is plausible, if not more ; but it is dangerous meddling with 
Falstaff s words ; and he would hardly pronounce Mouldy " past ser- 
vice," when Shallow declares him one of "your likeliest men." 

P. 128. ''A was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight 
were invisible. — So Rowe, who is followed by Steevens and Staunton. 
The old copies have invincible, which is to me without meaning here. 
Of course " thick sight " is dim sight. 

Act IV., Scene i. 

P. 130. Let us sway on, and face them in the field, — Editoi-s find 
sway on a troublesome expression. Collier's second folio reads " Lefs 
away on," which is decidedly tame. I am not aware that any other 
even plausible change has been proposed ; and sway on, though some' 
thing odd, seems to admit of a fitting sense. See foot-note i. 



196 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

P. 130. If that rebellion 

Came like itself in base and abject routs. 

Led on by heady youth, guarded with rags. — The old copies 
have bloody instead of heady, and rage instead of rags. The former 
correction was made by Warburton, and is also found in Singer's sec- 
ond folio : the latter was proposed by Walker, and is made in Collier's 
second folio. See foot-note 3. 

P. 131. I say, if damn^ d commotion so appear'd. 

In his true, native, and most proper shape. 

You, reverend father, and these noble lords. 

Had not been here, to dress the ugly form 

OfhsLte and bloody insurrection 

With your fair honours. — The old text has appear e instead 
of appeared, and base instead of bare. The context readily shows both 
appear'' d and bare to be right. We have many instances of final d and 
final e confounded, as we also have of bare and base. The last correc- 
tion is Walker's. 

P. 131. Turning your books to greaves, your ink to blood. The old 
copies have graves, which Warburton altered to glaives ; and the same 
change is made in Collier's second folio. But greaves yields a sense 
equally congruent, and comes nearer the old word ; therewithal it 
appears that greaves was often written graves. Steevens made the 
correction. See foot-note 5. 

P. 132. And are enforced from our most quiet sphere. — This pas- 
sage is not in the quarto, and the folio has there instead of sphere, 
which was proposed by Warburton, and adopted by Hanmer. Collier's 
second folio has chair, which might do very well, but that, as Dyce 
remarks, " the Archbishop is evidently talking of his associates as well 
as of himself^'' 

P. 133. My burden general is the commonwealth ; 
To brother born an household cruelty, 

I make my quarrel in particular. — The second of these lines 
is wanting in the folio ; and in the first the originals read " My Brother 
generall, the Commonwealth." With this reading, the passage abso- 



CRITICAL NOTES. I97 

lutely defies explanation. It is generally, perhaps justly, regarded as 
incurably corrupt. Still I am apt to think that a not unfitting sense 
may be got, without much straining, from the passage as here given. 
It has long seemed to me not unlikely that brother had crept into the 
first line, displacing some word which the Poet wrote. The reading in 
the text is Mr. Samuel Bailey's, who notes upon the passage thus : 
" * My burthen general is the commonwealth.' Burthen here of 
course signifies grievance, and it gives the required antithesis between 
public wrong and private cause of quarrel. Dr. Johnson achieved the 
same end by proposing quarrel in the first line instead of brother ; 
but with the disadvantage that quarrel could hardly be converted into 
the received text, while burthen and brother might easily be inter- 
changed." See foot-note 8. 

P. 134. The King, that loved him, as the State stood then. 
Was, iotCQ perforce, compelVd to banish him : 
And when that Henry Bolingbroke and he, &c. — This whole 
speech is wanting in the quarto. In the second line the folio has 
forced instead of force. But, as the phrase force perforce was very 
common, and as Shakespeare has it repeatedly, there can be little 
doubt of his having used it here. See foot-note 9. — In the third line, 
again, the folio has then instead of when. The correction was made 
by Rowe, and is found in Collier's second folio. 

P. 135. And bless'' d and graced indeed more than the King. — In- 
stead of indeed, the folio has and did. The correction is Thirlby's. 
This line and all the foregoing part of the speech are also wanting in 
the quarto. 

P. 135. Every thing set off 

That might so much as think you enemies. — The use of think 
seems rather odd and harsh here. Hanmer substituted mark, Capell, 
hint. Both changes are plausible, especially the latter ; but think is 
probably right. See foot-note 15. 

P. 135. Then reason wills our hearts should be as good. — The old 
copies have will instead of wills. Hardly worth noting, perhaps. 
Corrected by Pope. 



IQO KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

P. 136. And present execution of our wills 

To us and to our purposes confirm'd. — So Capell. The old 
copies have conjinde and tro^;?^ instead of confirmed. Hanmer reads 
"■properties confirm'd." 

P. 136. And either end in peace, — which God so frame ! — 

Or to the place of difference call the swords, &c. — The old 
copies read "^/ either end." An obvious error. 

Act IV., Scene 2. 

P. 140. To us th^ imagined voice of God himself — The old copies 
have imagine. See note on " I say, if damn'd commotion so appear' d,^^ 
&c., page 196. 

P. 140. Under the counterfeited seal of God. — So Walker and 
Collier's second folio. The old text has zeal instead of seal. Seal^ it 
appears, was first conjectured by Capell. 

P. 142. Therefore be merry, coz ; since sudden sorrow 

Seems to say thus. Some good thing comes to-morrow. — So 
Walker. The old text reads " Serves to say thus." 

P. 142. And, good my lord, so please you, let your trains 
March by us, that we may peruse the men 

We should have coped withal. — The old copies read " let our 
trains." An unquestionable error, which the context readily corrects. 

Act IV., Scene 3. 

P. 144. And the dungeon your place, a dale deep enough; so shall 
you be still Colevile of the Dale. — The old copies have " a place deep 
enough"; the word place having no doubt been repeated by mistake. 
Tyrwhitt made the correction. 

P. 147. My lord, ''beseech you, give me leave to go 

Through Glostershire. — The old text reads " My lord, I be- 
seech you." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I99 

P. 148. Which, deliver'' d o'er to the tongue, which is the birth, be- 
come excellent wit. — The old copies read " which deUvered o're to 
the Voyce, the Tongue, which is the Birth," &c. Here I have not the 
slightest doubt that, as Staunton suggests, the Voyce and the Tongue 
were written as alternative readings, or the latter as a substitute for the 
former, and that both accidentally got printed together. 

Act IV., Scene 4. 

P. 153. She either gives a stomach, and no food^ — 
Such are the poor, in health ; or else a feasts 
And takes away the stomach, — such the rich. 
That have abundance, and enjoy it not. — So Pope. The old 
editions read ** such are the rich." 

P. 154. This apoplex will certain be his end. — So Pope. The old 
text has apoplexi and apoplexie. The form apoplex was common. 

Act IV., Scene 5. 

P. 155. Scene V. — Another Room in the Same. 

The King on a bed; Clarence, Gloster, Warwick, and others 
attending. — The old copies have no stage- direction here, nor any 
thing to indicate a change of scene, except the words of the dialogue. 
These, however, necessarily infer that the King is carried into another 
room, and there placed on a bed. At the close of what is here given 
as Scene V., the King asks, " Does any name particular belong unto 
the lodging where I first did swoon? " and, on being told the name of 
that room, gives the order, " But bear me to that chamber ; there I'll 
lie." The Cambridge Editors, I believe, were the first to arrange the 
matter rightly. Dyce prints " \_They place the King on a bed ; a 
change of scene being supposed here.''"' But the fact of the King's being 
carried from one chamber into another, and then carried back into the 
first, is enough to justify the present order, and indeed fairly requires 
it. It is well known that the Elizabethan stage often left such changes 
to the imagination of the audience. 

P. 156. Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet 
As he whose brow's with homely biggen bound 
Snores out the watch of night. — Instead of brow's^ the old text 



200 KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. 

has brow simply. This makes broiv the subject of Snores; which 
comes pretty near being absurd. In the preceding line, perhaps we 
ought to read " not so sound nor half so deeply sweet." See, how- 
ever, foot-note 2. 



P. 158. For this the foolish over-careful fathers 

Have broke their sleeps with thought. — The old copies have 
thoughts. Corrected by Rowe. 



P. 158. Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd, 

We bring it to the hive. — So Dyce. The folio reads " our 
Thighes packt with Wax, Our Mouthes with Honey." The quarto 
varies from this in having Thigh instead of Thighes. 



P. 163. For what in me was purchase, 

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort. — So Lettsom and Col- 
lier's second foHo. The old text has purchased. Probably another 
instance of the confusion, so frequent, of final d and final e. See foot- 
note 12. 

P. 163. And all my foes, which thou must make thy friends ^ 

Have but their stings and teeth newly td'en out; 

By whose fell working I was first advanced. 

And by whose power I well might lodge a fear 

To be again displaced : which to avoid, 

I cut some off, and had a purpose now 

To lead out many to the Holy Land, &c. — In the first of these 
lines the old copies have thy friends instead of my foes ; a palpable 
error, which probably crept in by accidental repetition from thy friends 
at the end of the line. The correction of thy to my was proposed by 
Tyrwhitt, and is made in Collier's second folio ; that of friends to 
foes is Walker's. Dyce, at the suggestion of Lettsom, combines the 
two, and rightly, beyond question. — In the sixth line, again, the old 
text reads " I cut them off." Here them is manifestly quite at odds 
with the context. Corrected by Mason and in Collier's second folio. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20I 



Act v., Scene 2. 

P. 171. How m ight a prince of my great hopes forget 

So gxeaXindignities you laid upon me ? — Walker thinks that, 
in place of the second ^r^^^f, we ought to x&z.^ gross. But Shakespeare 
seldom cares, apparently, to avoid repetition of words in such cases. 

P. 172. And then imagine me taking your part, 

And, in your power, so silencing your son. — So Theobald and 
Collier's second folio. The old copies have soft instead of so. The 
process was any thing but soft. 

Act v.. Scene 3. 

P. 176, Be merry, be merry, my wife's as all. — So Farmer proposed, 
and so Rann printed. The old text reads " my wife has all." This, 
it seems to me, has no coherency with the context. Of course the 
meaning, as given in the text, is, " my wife is a shrew, as all wives 
are." 

P. i8i. Where is the life that late I led? say they : 

Why, here it is ; welcome this pleasant day ! — So Pope and 
Collier's second folio. The old copies have " these pleasant dayes^ 
and " those pleasant dayes.''^ 

Act v.. Scene 5. 

P. 183. Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth. — The quarto assigns this and 
Shallow's two preceding speeches to Pistol. The folio sets the prefix 
" Shal." to the first of the three, but leaves the others with the prefix 
" Pist."" All three clearly belong to Shallow. Corrected by Hanmer. 

Epilogue. 

P. 187. And what indeed I shall say will, I doubt, prove mine own 
marring. — So Walker. The old text reads " and what indeed I 
should ^z.y ,^'' The propriety of the change is obvious. 



1908 



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